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tv   U.S. Senate  CSPAN  August 15, 2012 5:00pm-8:00pm EDT

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they do have -- can have better health outcomes. as janet was mentioning earlier, patients now expect to be engaged through ice-t and everything that they do, including in their. the fact that health has been so far behind the ball in this area is somewhat surprising because it is one of those things that is really core to people's lives, every bit as essential as any financial management. hhs has another patient centered initiatives, watch which many of you have heard of this tax for commotion caused a lot of small programs, where premier laser focused on providers generating text messages dictation. text for babies was one of which providers generated.
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appointments for women her expect and children. this program has greatly expanded and there's a number of projects available. we have a list of researchers at the end of my site if you're interested in more projects, you can read about them on the website. some of the more recent projects will be much more interactive. hhs also as a whole has shown interest in giving patients access to more health information by releasing notice of proposed rulemaking, almost a little bit over a year ago now. i'm must steer ago now with the hepa privacy role. for those of you not so familiar with this little piece hippa lawyer, when individuals were given access to health information under subsection, there is a carveout for
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information which was held by clinical laboratories who are subject to the clinical laboratories improvement act. to make a long story short, the notice to proposed rulemaking, which is a joint role because they were pieces of hippa as well as pieces have clear that had to be changed in order should make it happen would expand the rights of patients to directly access lab test results and has been designed to empower patients to form partners health care providers. as janet mentioned earlier in more detail than i will go into, there is also provisions in the npr ran for meaningful use stage to that also focus on making it her mission more accessible to patients. the onc has taken a focus on this area and hunt them act
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created an office of consumer engagement, which is currently being run by the acting chair, my server kari who many of you are familiar with. and this really demonstrates how committed onc is to not only making providers are meaningfully using hot information, but also patients can existing pain. the consumer engagement strategy is based on what we fondly refer to as access, action and attitude. it is very much oriented towards meaningful usurpations that they should have access to their own health information, that they should be able to easily take action with that information in a meaningful way and that some of these attitudes better than ingrained in some areas of health care for a while, that
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patients are some mean that health care happens to instead of patients engage in me to change. we are working on all three of these and many projects. in particular, onc has a number of patient generated data initiatives and one of these is a white paper, which was commissioned from rti released in april of this year. this discusses tactical, operational, cultural issues that surround patient generation of data because there's still an mentioned earlier, this is an area that is a little bit different than when we had thought about health information on the past is the something that is just generated the clinical contact. the policy committee, which was created under high-tech also had a hearing on patient generated data in june of this year, very
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recently. this hearing material is also available on our website for those who are of more interest in it. there is also a study in on patient access to their health information, which looks at patient getting access to the nation, reviewing and giving feed back to their providers and is exploring how to patients and providers are able to engage and whether some of the challenges, which people thought would occur with patients generated data have occurred in the system similar to some of the questions raised and design projects, this is being conducted by a yorick passenger and the anticipated release of this study is the
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first of 2013. and as devin has raised earlier, these patient generated data does raise a number of legal issues and privacy and security issues. as the law now, we in this country regulate in a very sector pacific way. so we have some rules that apply to this pc or in other rules that apply to this piece here. a lot of people, particularly consumers do think this hippa protects health information and that is not the case. as deven mentioned, it does not apply when individuals enter their own information into the system such as ones that have been described. we recognize this. as a matter of fact, the administration has recognized
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there are a number of ways in which people interact on the internet come or the privacy protections probably do need to be heightened. he said there was a white house initiative on internet privacy and it would actually provide what i like to refer to as kind of a safety net protection that would cover some information exchanged on the internet when it is not covered by hippa or other federal laws. in addition to these large policy issues, we have done a lot of work on and health and privacy and security in my office and achieve privacy office. one of the things we looked up as the security mobile devices that was mainly down from a provider perspective, but we looked at it from the advice is they came out at the box and it's very interesting to look
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at. there's just a sea of red, even devices or you could not set a password if you wanted to. in addition to that, we are cannot team a focus group research that came out of the text for health recommendations that would look into this issue in particular of consumer attitudes on a mobile device and what were the trade-offs they were willing to make in some potential. in addition to that, we are also working at the national strategy for trusted identities in cyberspace, which is another acronym, which i address as one of the issues that janet raised when she did her opening about identity proofing patient and authenticating on when they are submitting information on the internet. and those are some of the main things we are focusing on. we do have this list of websites
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you go to for more information on the work we do in this area. >> terrific. thank you so much. we are now at the opening of the conversation stage in this program. there are microphones that you can use to go to to and verbalize your question. as i've mentioned, there are green cards in your packet that you can write your question on. if you'll hold that card out, somebody on our staff will pluck you from your fingers and bring up the word. and to get it started, janet, you've been scribbling questions as presentations at anna had. what you get us started. >> thank you, ed. i would like to direct my first question to dr. rothemich. first about the mechanic for sharing your experience on the ground with us anyways good to
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hear about positive outcomes you experienced as a result of hearing these technologies. so let's just say, if we were to look at scaling this across the country, improving these types of interactions among clinicians and patients, which is very exciting, what action, either policy or otherwise do you believe need to be taken to assist particularly fellow clinicians? >> well, this audience is probably more policy experts and im, but one of the things that i think we saw was even with 30 patients into essays, this was a sizable amount of work, additional work on my new work they were taken not to do this. so one of the policy implications would be that within a work that gets done at the end of the day, someone's got to pay for the time to get
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it done. it's whatever the mechanism of payment might be, perhaps it is something directly reimbursable. perhaps it is something that is a potential savings to the organization of its unaccountable care organization. so i don't know the exact solution is fair, but i do want to recognize a fair amount of her. we would not have wanted or found it useful to do this with every patient and our practice who have asthma. so we are focusing in on the ones that there was more likely to benefit. and we didn't see that for six months the clinician and the patients both felt this was doable and useful. but i don't have it either would necessarily say that after two years. so one of the things that i think we want to think about is there are probably certain times
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where certain patients would benefit from looking at this information this intensely. the patient having repeated visits to the er who can't get their asthma control. and for a time that that would need to be looked at very closely. and not to say practices have to figure out how to do this workflow. >> thank you. >> we have a number of people lined up at the microphone. we ask you to identify yourself and keep your questions as brief as you possibly can so we can get through everybody's inquiries. i don't know who was first. we will start on my right coming to relax. >> restart. this is nathan jansky from the medicine association. my question is about utilization, so if you could talk about i guess two-person utilization. one is in terms of increasing patient's ability to understand
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health care. if there's any resistance from insurers who may not want to detail and people is business models based on people not utilizing health care as much as they could be. it has been a failure resistant to change there, maybe your provider does not want to -- [inaudible] on the other side, is their opportunities and to you think this will affect the co-pay structure? for example, you get a free hiv tests, free flu shot, free preventative visit. what you see happening as far as utilization does, terriers you have? >> steve, everybody seems to be turning to you. >> great questions. i mean, the utilization is really probably going to depend on the case as of who's using it
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under what bastide detailed. in some ways, you need to find a case, almost business case around the circumstance for an intensive look at someone's information because you think that's going to make them healthier and in the long run reduce utilization. that discount to organizations are realizing the savings makes a difference that is part the business model. you know, to be honest we have an engage deeply with the insurance industry on this other than to have an advisor from that industry and these projects. they were kind of done off the books of nonsense. the co-pay thing is really interesting because this sort of model a practicing care gets you away from the notion that health care is delivered in doses where you show up to an office and receive the treatment.
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the sort of thing is much more of a continuous relationship and the idea of a co-pay starts to make less sense or maybe the co-pay is the comments you want want to come in the office and talk to us, that is the co-pay. but in this direction, maybe there's no co-pay at all. i don't know if others have not come out. >> yes, hi. i am with consulting services and i represent net smart technologies, which is a vendor that provides electronic health records to addiction providers. this is a question to joy pritts. we have become concerned about from firm reports that state information exchanges not accepting electronic health records because of conflicting
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interpretations of state and federal patient confidentiality laws, particularly related to health and addiction records that we know, joy company working with the administrative on these issues. number one, if you can tell the audience about how onc works the same sign on the confidentiality related to these records and secondly, anything you can say about this pressing hiv matter what the helpful to us. i'll take your response seated. >> in response to your first question, we work very closely on the confidentiality rules. for those of you not familiar with those rules, there is a federal -- a set of federal regulations that apply directly to substance abuse -- substance
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abuse -- substance and alcohol abuse treatment facilities, which is very broadly defined. those rules are more stringent than the hipaa privacy rule and they require an individual's express permission to share their information, even for treatment purposes. the purpose behind the role was to make sure that people had these conditions would comment and get treatment without fear of being arrested, frankly. and to our knowledge, that last piece has not changed over the years, that there is still danger of potential risk of this information on and into the wrong hands. so the challenge that has evolved is that the rules were written very much at a time in a
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paper world. and saw that the policy may not have changed, the implementation of that policy into an electronic environment has proven to be somewhat challenging. as i was saying, we work very closely with non-on trying to find solutions to this. we have heard anecdotally that some of the health information exchange organizations that are forming are hesitant to accept information that is generated from the substance abuse facilities because it's one of those eras for the protection actually follows the data. so if it is generated and with the shorthand called cfr part 2
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facility, then when it is exchanged with what goes into the patient consents to be shared and the recipient to say, they may not predispose that information unless they have the patients expressed permission. we are working on a number of fronts and how to tackle this issue because we recognize the administration recognizes how it is to have these substance abuse and mental health really integrated into primary care. one of the things that my office has been doing for the last year is working on standard development for amanda data tagging that might provide -- will provide a technological solution to this challenge. as you know, because you mentioned samsara has been working with a number of state to try to find ways that they
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cannot necessarily harmonize, go back in redraft all kinds of laws, but look at the interpretation of things that exist in their state, to see if they can come up with some common solutions of approaches to some of these issues. one of the keys here that people need to understand is that the preemption, the federal preemption, the way some six treats federal preemption, is more stringent than privacy protection remain in place. so that in itself is not just those two areas that you mentioned. in any state law where there is mandate that an individual consent be obtained for these specific purposes, it is presenting a challenge. and i think it is very important
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to point out that it's not just this one little area. it is a much wider issue. >> joya, while we have you thinking about the reach of hipaa, there is a question on a card that can dispense of fairly quickly. the question would like to know whether the health and history information entered into a terminal and there.is.this is covered by hipaa? >> provided the health care provider is covered by hipaa, yes, they should be. >> yes, they should be. >> banks. >> i want to note the panel shared what i have delegated oversight approving apps through the fda and mental process, which can be very timely and
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costly where the shelf life of an out this short and a lot of people who develop them are working out their garage, for instance. you've got to make it worthwhile for them. so i am wondering if you have any concerns relative to this oversight. it's a smartphone now medical device that has to be approved by the fda? i mean, we'd still be waiting for an grouper is that it had to fda. >> the answer to that is what you take a moment to explain to some of us what a doofus. is it a town illinois? >> i think that is paducah. >> a law that was reauthorize. and you know, this whole issue of apps was included because fda
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now says they would like to have a peek at apps and whether or not it is a medical device and tax decide how long it takes things to get approved when they don't have the staff and management now to do the work that they are diaz to take this on. >> joya, did you want to take that one? i'm happy to talk about it. >> i prefer not to. >> she doesn't work for the fda. >> so yes, it is the case the food and drug administration is looking at the extent to which its congressionally authorized authority to regulate something that is a medical device would extend to certain things on your phone, like a nap. i doubt it will extend to angry birds.
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>> there aren't any studies that show it improves. >> i think it is a difficult line to draw. on the one hand, if there are two guys in a garage creating a map at a health care provider is going to make a decision about me clinically, word operates like a medical device in terms of saying, here is that the persons but pressure is at this moment, here is what it is after they do a certain thing and someone makes a medical or clinically relevant decision based on that, i want someone to look at it and make sure it actually works as it is being presented to the world. on the other hand, if you've got a device, basically helping you track your fitness level, where you may be using it in terms of deciding whether you run faster the next day and maybe if it's off by 10th of a mile or two,
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knowable by, that doesn't necessarily get through full device regulation procedure. i think what the fda is trying to do is draw a line. what is a mobile medical app, for example? and what is a wellness that? with the type of information on the clinical medical side generated and collected and used to make a clinical decision versus information used to help on this? that is not an easy line to draw. as steve jones made the point, information that doesn't look like health care or nation is fact relevant to have their context and how do you draw that line? from somebody who represents consumers in some of these discussions, i don't know that i want to say fda, go away to some of these apps that in fact are designed to be used to make medically relevant decisions, where maybe there is a task --
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with a piece of information coming out of this device result in somebody getting hurt? and i do want somebody looking at some sort of standard applied. having said that, what does that look like? under what condition? i don't think it is at all clear. to the extent that regulation, when it is not done appropriately and surgically correctly can be an innovation killer heard that the problem, too. i don't see it is option deregulated at all because some are used for clinical decision-making. >> i do agree with denton. if you look at the example i did earlier up at the company on the established changes against that, if the output of southwest to say we've noticed a change in your behavior, it appears he may be fighting back in to depression, you should double your dose of prozac immediately.
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yeah, you would want to regulate it. if what they are doing to say we noticed a change in your behavior, or he may be concerned about this to me by one and discuss this with your doctor to figure out an appropriate course of action. so those are sort of easy lines to draw icing. but what you hear in developer communities, the most import and is however they are drawn, they are drawn and they are clear because that is the heart thing. a few are people in the garage trying to build a company and you've got something really unclear whether or not you need fda approval, that it's really hard circumstances to work on. >> what you just said, steve, sounds like whatever the line ends might be drawn once on the actual act than on the use to which the information is put.
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>> it depends on what is the happen what is the service. maybe it less about the announcement and more about the action for that. the focus group resource after they had a chance to do that, they talked about connections among different aspects of their health. so for example, patients are saying when they look at committee level and sleep, i noticed that more to the d'amore sleep the fact time energy level of the entries had a real effect on decreasing pain level. that's an important insight you can get from algorithms and you can make changes in your behavior to take advantage of that. i don't think anything of merit necessarily rises to the level of medical treatment or
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providing medical device. but at the same time it's important to get the inside. >> i didn't mean to suggest there should be no oversight. i think oversight is good, but it's got to be reasonable, timely and it's got to make sense financially. >> yes, we are at this microphone. >> on the national journal of higher. this is far-fetched, but can you imagine a scenario where it is required for amanda cherry to provide data in order to be eligible for cert health care plan and how we could prevent that? >> i will take the first crack at that.
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the technology infrastructure to make that possible as they are. that could have been. that is why it is so important when you have technology in the applications of technology emerging that you bring in policies so they can have discussions about values and what sort of roles you want to put on it. ..
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a small number over a short time, and picked up one problem. in a lupus patients, five or six problems that could have been followed and monitored. the -- if that were scaled up, even limited to sick patients, as it should be, that is a lot of work. and $20 per patient per month management fee is not going to cover that. if you wanted physicians to use it and do it and keep up with the information, which they must come as a lawyer i know a common cause of malpractice lawsuits is something that was missed and then turned out, you know, goes along and turns into something much more serious. you cannot afford to overlook things. if you want people to do it, it would be a good idea to, until we get to the rate hcl in the
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sky pay doctors for looking at the intermission and telephone calls. there are already -- there's already cut for it. this saves everyone money. convenient for the patient, says the doctor time and money. is it the pier time. i don't understand why cms cannot pay for phone calls. there is no congressional law forbidding it. tickets to the minister of thing going tomorrow. >> my response against libya don't disagree with anything he said. and i don't think anything i think disagrees with what you're saying. here we have to find a way to pay for this. you're quite right. that if we have had every patient with asthma and diabetes and you name it collecting this data, that would be impossible. if we have found that just a small number of 30, and the
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commission said, no, this is too much, that might be a death knell for this kind of work. i think we have to be selective, and you're right, it has to be reimbursed because it does, at the end of the day, takes some of this time. >> and they will not taken seriously if it is not reimbursed now. it will just be one more thing to do. >> can i just ask, has anybody heard of an interest level from a ceo, either private or the ones running through cms? adopting any of the use of 0dl or other kind of data that we are talking about? patient generated data. i would welcome if people have the answer to that question are not on the panel. that would be fine since we don't have cms folks on the panel. [inaudible]
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>> how that data flows back into the code. the nerve center and i think within there are different networks looking at that. [inaudible] >> i think you were out of microphone range. i will condense that answer by saying, yes. [laughter] particularly in minnesota. thank you very much. do you want to identify yourself? [inaudible] >> thank you very much. yes, sir?
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>> marco dmitri. i am an adviser of health of the mission management. strategy for different organizations and small businesses. i was a former fda -- sun going to give my $0.2 about the mobile apps very briefly. first of all, i'm going to agree. what was said was absolutely right. trying to regulate the whole mobile application platform. they're trying to focus on specific high risk applications. clinical decisions its nuns is the application. it may be the mobile device because mobile device is not just your smart phone. it can monitor data, it can be together with other devices. that is the main concern. beyond that i want to mention just to complement what was
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answered. and then the other aspect is something, some people don't know so well about that definitions of devices. according to the government. biomedical software, especially when it's connected to patients' safety is under the regulatory authority of the fda. they're not invoke the authority because -- for certain reasons. they have done a lot of good work over the last year's, taken action on that, but they can go ahead and regulate biomedical software. but, of course, for the sake of innovation we don't want to make these not affordable. so that is my other point. so just to give a little clarification of that, and then my question is this, it's all of you, i think we assume the affordable care act drama we are
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looking now for the development. and our second provision, a quality that has to do with intimidation of different @booktv implementation of different technology. electing the performance. sponsors that we need to employment in other things. other funds that need to be given, innovators to make this work in the quality department. so in this part of information technology what are your thoughts? what do you see as the timeline for the state of the federal and also for innovators as we know grow to the implementation of the health care reform, how we can do this better, what you see in the future.
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>> that is such a devastatingly complex question. you have stunned the panel. >> i would say, again, since we sort of half ways of and plunging the health care industry and health care policy that are kind of nested within a bunch of different agencies within the federal government, if you are even just thinking of the federal government and have all of the interesting initiatives that are happening in the private sector, it is not one clear time line, it is kind of, you know, multiple initiatives going on someone simultaneously, each one piggybacking off of the other. i can say that, at least, from not help id policy committee perspective three are already starting to look at what the criteria would be the third stage of the age our incentive program which would include, you know, a set of objectives as well as with the technology has
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to include in order to be certified and then all of that subject to the eligibility for federal subsidy, and we are definitely exploring the capability to be able to incorporate patient-generated data from a potentially wide variety of sources with the provider having the option to choose which one works best for his or her particular patient population and starting with the relatively low threshold of patience, taking into account all of the provider issues. there is one set of initiatives, again, being discussed very early. stage three discussions, but it is still hearing and looking at where the potential is to move the kneele on quality and cost issues and trying to drive from incentives in that direction. >> yes. hello. family practice. i was wondering if you could go into a little more detail about some of the incentive structures you mentioned a couple, but incentive structures to
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encourage physicians to integrate some of these technologies and down the line how that is going to affect their meaningful use requirement. >> yeah. sure. i think we are really at the start of the incentives that are really sort of more kind of aggressively focusing on bringing the patient view into the process verses really the focus for stage one and much of what we have seen the proposals for states to have been about equipping patients with the data that they might need that they can then use themselves which is, you know, a necessary first step. where the bi-directional flows are concerned that raises additional issues. from a policy and technology standpoint, that is why they're really getting a more meaningful look for stay december 3, which, you know, feels like it is way out there, but it is actually not. it is just around the corner, especially if we have an expectation that the technology vendors who are still busy implementing stages one and two,
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will be able to get the product upgrades in time to be really ready for stage three. so first focus being the access piece of it, you know, new patients have access to electronic data that they can really use. we have seen the blue but an initiative, cms to the blue but an initiative. that's a discussion about how to make that an ability for you to get of view and download of your health information and be able to take that up. so others may want to talk about it. i think we are just -- and on accountable care organizations, the financial incentives are driven toward outcomes. so to the extent that there are -- you can actually realized it out cause by taking care of patients better when they're still in their homes, you know, that is something that does not surprise me that there is at least 1ac0 exploring it because it is a very appealing way to leverage resources and get
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better outcomes. >> i think the way i would think about it is to remind everyone, very early days and this kind of work. the studies are very small, not this -- statistically significant. out of patience done all the time, not all circumstances. for me the question is less about how you provide incentives for people to do this and more, do you create a policy environment where it makes sense for where you are able to do this when it makes sense and when you can find value in it and not be hampered by a policy that says, you know, don't do this, even if it is a good idea because we structured your payments or the rules to prevent it. in some ways that is our purpose of trying to share this work at this point is to say, this is common along. there may be real opportunities here. you want to make sure the policy environment enables those opportunities to be realized,
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but not necessarily create incentives to say you don't need to be doing this now. >> my question is, i think she pretty much asked the same question. i was just thinking from a provider perspective with respect to the smart phone at by breed easy that was mentioned, it was unclear to me when i was listening to that discussion exactly how this would be implemented or who would be the decision maker. would it come from the physician had to divide the patient and said, i think you would be great for this? or would it be the patient who would read and have access to the application and say, i think this is a great way for me to manage my care. a little confusing to me who was the entry point, where does it begin? the physician that as a device the patient and then they go from there?
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the reason i ask that is because it was mentioned that perhaps in the emergency department physicians or punishes may identify patients who would be eligible to use the application. if you could provide some clarification on the jacket with the intent is so who is supposed to use this, the physician at that and defies the patient or the patient? of appreciate that. >> at the get the end of the day there will have to be some negotiation between those two parties. it is not at unilateral decision. but in a medical home world it would not necessarily be the er physician who was seeing the patient. i would know that as a primary care doctor, that they had been in the er. to me, you know, i don't know if they're is a right or wrong answer, but i am, perhaps, being a physician, thinking more physician center kelly. assuming that we would not be identified these people.
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>> it would not replace the position. >> no, i don't think so. that is a natural part. it would just become another tool that we have. >> okay. thank you. >> good afternoon. my name is richard berner brennan, executive director of the health care technology association of america which is an affiliate of the national association for home care and hospice. i think i will give credit may be to janet as far as health happens outside the clinic, i think one of the things i heard on the panel that came out today. one of the things that we are trying to do is a line with a group of providers that provided incentives for electronic health records along with acute care, those providers was not acute-care and posed acute care providers. so we have identified a huge need to try and make sure that we have a line that across the spectrum of care. i have been working in that regard under the s in i
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framework, community-led initiative to create a longitudinal care plan, and i would -- part of my question is informational to make sure that you are looking at a model. the home health plan care, our use case was just about through the s in i free-market and will go through hl7 balloting. we plan on using that and hope to use it across a platform of care providers, in other words, physicians, the partnership with them, but other partners could use this as an electronic means of establishing goals, interventions and also of those being measurable back-to-back clinical data that can be collected either by remotely tomorrow patient monitors or on site by commission. so i just wanted to -- part of my question to ask, more over arching. and now we had a very specific
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look at specific programs and interventions, but what new models of care coordination are going to be needed in order to a better engage patience and care and how this is going to happen on a holistic way. thank you. >> i can take a stab at that. we've come a bipartisan policy center released a report earlier this year looking at the attributes of high-performance. reducing costs and improving quality and health care and patient activation engagement peace being a huge and common attribute across a number of organizations that we interviewed. i think this relates to the other -- there were two questions around payment. i think looking, as steve mentioned, and specific actions and reimbursing them is very different than actually -- and we are very encouraged to see a number of the delivery system and payment models that are being tested by cn and i, number
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of states, number of health plans across our country and providers that are actually providing incentives for better care, coordinated care, a comfortable care. and this is just the peace. so clinician's, doctors working with those who provide financial support for these models, working with patients that are heavily involved in governance and a number of these initiatives is the way forward. and we applaud your lead around home care. really the wave of the future. >> my question is about data aggregation. this seems a we are talking about a patients entering camino, old metrics over a new medium and the physician is the one who aggregate that data. you know, instead of, perhaps, different way of doing things like a target which has more
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data points and a health care provider and you can figure out when people are pregnant without having to ask them. so, what kind of -- you know, are we heading that way? at the same time, would such systems which would necessitate, you know, the computerization of health care allow people to operate at the top of their license, as we say? and also, are there barriers were physicians will feel like, you know, they are watts and technicians, the computer made to do this sort of thing. so that green is a whole, interesting area. and there are companies like patients like me and cured together where people enter a lot of affirmation about themselves, treatments, experiences and then can see in the average 80 crowd how they're doing relative to others and the insight can be gone from that. there are great stories of, you know, patients finding that there were only on 10 milligrams of something because there
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doctor said that's all anyone should really take and then they find that 90 percent of people with a similar condition is actually getting 100 milligrams. in your back and say, what gives. so, so i think their is a ton of opportunity there. i think the -- again, who is doing what with the insight is always a good question. again, the example of the person who was on and off the lotus, they can go to their doctor and say, announcing an need 100 milligrams, but evidence would sweep just that other people are on it. let's have a conversation about that. the other thing that i think that this does is, it really does open up the question of what professional skills are needed to do what tasks associated with providing care in a coordinated fashion, and that think the example with breeze easy where they have nurses reviewing the data, the dashboard's from the patient's and then tree dies escalating to physicians is a good example.
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let's put the right tasker right person or ride skills and divvy up the work that way. i can speak for others. >> i was just going to add, if i am remembering correctly, didn't every project in the up with a model like that where there was -- in none of these projects did they decide that the physician was going to be the first and your of the information. >> absolutely. there was always some element going on. >> you get the last question. >> thank you. good afternoon. taking it back to reimbursements and a nicely done with every model ended up with a different carotene may be taking a piece of this before it got to that end of care provided that might make a decision. each one of those pieces of the puzzle comes with a salary and the need for reimbursement. a couple of things that came up at the physicians brought up earlier round telephone visits.
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the chapter ten of the broadband plan spoke about e-visits which is now going on for years sitting on that plan and the components of that plan. how do we move policy forward that keeps up with the technology and so we are looking at e-visits for one. we are looking to update the very antiquated reimbursement for telemedicine, which is probably five years behind on the books, which means 10-15 years behind in terms of the technology can do today. applaud a model and what is happening with innovations, but how can we raise that discussion both at valenciennes cms to look at moving those reimbursements structures forward. and then also, how can we look at other industries and what has happened in the micro finance world cup? we talked a little earlier about copay. if you look at, for instance, the music industry, one of the ways that apple turned that on
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its head was, you could buy as sandra $0.99. well, i can sell an album for $20.15. by what i want $0.99? well, the way that they made it so easy for people to grab that music and do we look or have we looked at other industries and the way mike greuel finance is used and being used in other parts of the world and bring that to bear on health care, what has it meant that a provider just got very many, many small payments to my maybe not out of the insurance industry, but directly from patients, i would be willing to pay. but we don't have the financial structures in place at all in the u.s. or barely, so we have spread as move in. that is the beginning, but how can we look at, again, some of the other things happening in other industries that might help of ocelot. >> i think rather than a question, you have just turned out several really important
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challenges for all of us who are looking to see the kneele moved on health care, but for patients and providers. and, you know, we did not come to the table with any experts on reimbursement, but i think it is fascinating and just underscores how we need to be thinking about health information and health care and health differently than the way that we have historic the thought of it. if we really hope to leverage technology better and bring patients more into the center of the conversation and make all of it work far better than it does today. rather than questions, i will say, good points. good stocks to fall upon. >> you have time for another question? >> i'm afraid we don't. and i apologize to all of the folks who put questions on cards that we did not get to.
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we have run out of time. and i want to come back and think our friends at the bipartisan policy center, particularly janet, our colleagues at the robert johnson foundation, particularly steven downs. thank you for sticking with an acronym-filled, mind-stretching discussion, at least for some of us. i want to take a second to note, also, and thank jackie fenton who had labored for the alliance as interns this summer, and this will be the final day. i don't know if jackie is going to be around when we have our briefing on friday, but when you join me in thanking the panel for a great discussion, you will also be thinking faith. [applause]
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and see yourself in reruns throughout the week. [applause] [laughter] >> all this week on c-span2, 6:00 p.m. eastern, national press club speeches from earlier in the year. coming up, the ceo of u.s. airways. thursday, weather channel meteorologist jim can tory, and on friday filmmaker ken burns and his documentary about probation. today at seven eastern the commanding officer of the u.s.s. cole when it was attacked 12 years ago by terrorists. a book about the bombing and is our guest. then tonight at 8:00 eastern here on c-span2, a discussion on the economic lessons from the presidency of calvin coolidge, former vermont governor howard dean was among those participating, and he talked about what he thinks it will take to balance the federal budget. >> i actually think that we ought to go with the fiscal
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cliff. horrifies almost everyone in washington, but i'll tell you why. there is no chance he will go back to the clinton tax rates unless we do that, and we need to. secondly, there is no chance to look at the defense budget unless we do that, and we need to cut the defense budget. and, yet, there are some things that will be very painful for those of us. and it will tip us into the recession according to the congressional budget officers. the non-partisan people in the country as far as i can tell. and with the decline for two consecutive quarters and the increase over the year, is a very tough fight, but if there is going to be no agreement with washington and these people, the fact is we need to do these things. we cannot go on with the kind of deficits we have, and people have been saying that since the coalition was put together. that was a long time ago. the exception, it has got worse
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and worse and worse. we cannot afford it. a little tough liberal democrat the reason we get some programs when i was running the state, the success, all those changes, the environmental, the land deal, because we had a stable budget. these things were not treated as one time expenditures that were somehow going to go away magically. monday raised expenses be raised taxes. we also laid the framework for gradual expansion of the roles of the things that i thought needed to be done, particularly in health insurance. you cannot do that if you don't care where the money comes from and if you're fiscally responsible. you can only do that if you have a base of this responsibility to pay attention so that when you do these things the programs are sustainable. i think that is important and we cannot continue to run these kinds of deficits and that nothing anything would get done because -- and i don't when the democrats for this. they're not going to continue to
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allow millionaires to have tax breaks while cutting social security and medicare. >> you can see all this discussion of the presidency of calvin coolidge in today's economy tonight at 8:00 eastern here on c-span2. the ceo of u.s. airway spoke at the national press club last month. he is leading an effort to try to buy rival american airlines of the bankruptcy. he says, a merger between the two airlines would save 100,000 jobs. he spoke into questions of the press club for about an hour. [applause] >> u.s. airways is certainly a big presence here in the nation's capital. the airline, which has long been a dominant player at reagan national airport expanded its offerings to five additional cities just this month. our speaker today, u.s. airway ceo ted parker is a national presence in the airline industry he has been the poster child for changes in the airline business since he first took the helm at america west in 2001. according to former southwest ceo he is also a pretty mean
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poker player. more on that in a moment. as mr. parker has his way, his most recent gamble pays off adding five new routes will be peanuts compared to the cards you would like to play. ted parker was just 39 when he accepted the role of chief executive officer of america west on september 1st 2001. as one of the youngest ceos in the industry, parker had already shown from his earlier tenure serving as cfo that he was a man of insight and quick action. he was well prepared to take the reins. of course, no one could have predicted that just ten days after parker became ceo of america west the country would be devastated by the attacks of september 11th. in the emotional and financial fallout of that tragic day the airline industry came close to collapse. parker navigated america west through these difficult times. when the company urged -- merge with u.s. airways in 2005,
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parker took a new set of challenges on as the ceo of the newly restructured legacy airline. u.s. airways is a company built on mergers and acquisitions, which is sitting -- fitting for the industry's main advocate for a consolidation. he has argued time and again that airlines can be more flexible, more capable, and more valuable to travelers if they join forces. the airlines that did so are now operating successfully. back to those high stakes poker. mr. parker, as you on the depth of you himself believes that combining u.s. airways and american airlines would create a more competitive industry and a more sustainable airline. so far, his plan has received widespread support, including and, perhaps, surprisingly from the workers and american airlines and their unions. he is here today to tell us more about the merger and where it fits into his broader vision for the industry as a whole. ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming back parker to the national press club.
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[applause] >> thank you. thank you. a very nice. i will say, not a particularly good poker player. a particularly and uniquely bad one. so he makes you look good. thank you again. this is a real honor to be here. i want to express my heartfelt thanks to the members of the national press club for their hospitality. this luncheon is a wonderful tradition, and we're honored to be a part of it. i want to start by thanking jamie who is here on behalf of the transport workers union that was as to middle and organizing. thank you very much. and also want to us stop right now and begin by extending my deep gratitude to the american airlines union that is joining me here today who you already introduced.
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they're all here. it has been a pleasure working with all of you the past several months, and am looking forward to what our future has in store. thank you for being here. i am also a thrill to be here today in our nation's capital. this room and this town lives at the absolute intersection of policy, business, media, and the public interest. i wanted to be here to discuss my view of the state industry and u.s. airways vision for our company's future. now, the level of media interest focused on my interest and continues based on the size possibly the revenue generated by our business. we have seen it generate to garner a disproportionate share of coverage. although, if you think about how many people and communities we impact, perhaps it is not that surprising. the airline business is one of the most dynamic in challenging industries in the world, one that is most difficult to navigate given that so many pieces of our business are out of our control from the impact of oil prices to weather
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patterns. although margins are known for being slim, small profits have a very large impact. in 2011, for example, the domestic airline industry added 10,000 jobs even though we made less than $300 million in total. we also serve over 780 million passengers traveling to, from command within the united states accounted for roughly 5 percent of our national gdp and driving $1 trillion in global economic activity. as economic growth has slowed over the past several years airlines have adapted and defaults, beginning in 2008 we focused on efficiently using capacity to meet demand, controlling costs, and maximizing service to destinations with the greatest demand. other airlines had taken similar actions command at the same time legislators and regulators have sought to improve and preserve the health of our industry. i am happy to report that the a for a board is working more effectively with washington to ensure safe and secure air
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transportation and to enable u.s. airlines to thrive while stimulating economic growth. it is true, we need to do more. architraves a practical, national policy to address these in order to foster sustainable profitability, benefit for consumers demand additional jobs we have a lot to show for our efforts. policymakers have helped the industry to take great strides in a more active regulatory environment, and on that note of elected think congress, the secretary, and faa administrator for their diligence in making air travel the safest of has ever been. their steadfast focus on safety is deeply appreciated in shared by all of us in the industry. so, let me tell you a little bit of what is happening in our country -- company. i am happy to report the team is doing a phenomenal job. our results and prospects have never been stronger. we are going to announce our second quarter results next week , but we have already disclosed that we will have a strong second quarter. based upon current business
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conditions we're expecting a strong full year 2012. we're producing record revenues, record yields, very strong load factors, and we're keeping unit costs down and flying a great airline. so far we set new records in nearly every operating metric that we measure. that is an airline that has led the network carriers of the last five years in key customer reliability metrics. the credit for our success goes to the 302,000 hard-working people, and i am honored to stand here and represent them. doing a fantastic job taking care of our customers, and i cannot think of enough. the responsibility of our management team is to ensure we're doing everything we can to support this people and make u.s. airways as strong as it possibly can be. so, you might ask, if u.s. airways is doing so well on its own what he's been so much time and energy talk about mergers? does keep doing what you're doing so well as an independent airline. first of all, for the first time
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we ever mentioned the benefits of mergers we have always said to mothers no need for u.s. airway to participate, and that is most certainly the case today. but just because we are doing well independently and have a model that works well, that does not mean that we should not work to make the model stronger. we ask our team members to continually raise the bar and make sure we do the same. we owe it to them and our other stakeholders to take our airline not a strong and viable, but as strong and competitive as it can possibly be. that is where mergers commission. mergers have been used to great effect by united continental, delta, northwest, southwest air tran, and america west u.s. airwaves. all four combined airlines provide better networks and are now profitable. by combining complementary networks to provide more attractive and efficient service , mergers have led to increased traffic, cost reductions, and vigorous competition. u.s. airways is a prime example of this. oil prices are the same in 2011 as they were in 2008.
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our focus on offering consumers more choices on how and where they travel as well as on our own internal cost helps u.s. air western a hundred million dollar loss in 2008 into a $100 million profit into a dozen 11. the benefits of this trend extend way past the bottom line. there are real advantages to combining airlines for employees, customers kind communities. employees will benefit from greater job security and more long-term opportunities. if they're working for a successful airline. customers would gain more flight options that better times to more places. and whenever to airlines combined the up in the communities that they serve to many more travelers. american airlines set out this and it has left is strategically compromised. i no american airlines very well. packed my got my start there in the mid 80's. american is still a great airline with a powerful brand and great people, including senior management team led by my friend, tom gordon.
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not the largest airline in the world anymore or even close to it. merges of unity continental and delta and northwest created to airlines with much better developed route networks and americans. finally, late last year after watching the airline revenue share getting loaded by new, more attractive networks and unable to get its own cost structure in line with is pretty generic capability american resorted to bankruptcy. while i have never worked for company in bankruptcy, have seen enough in this business to know what airlines can and cannot accomplish. first, bankruptcy does allow airlines to either negotiate new contract with the liver unions or impose even worse terms upon their employees and allows the desert to avoid repaying all the people that have lent the money. finally, and allows the airline to renegotiate contracts such as aircraft leases and obligations. all of these steps have significant financial advantages. airlines can have lower operating costs and lower debt,
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and as fervently as much as they had before they filed. bankruptcy cannot fix a revenue problem, specifically, the bankruptcy process cannot repair a structural network problem like the one american airlines as today. america cannot fix those network deficiencies through organic growth either. americans network weakness and the consequent ready challenges can only be fixed through a merger in only through a merger with usa waste. the me explain. in the five years before filing bankruptcy american airlines slipped from being one of the top three domestic airlines in the east, west compensatory edges of the united states to being ranked no better than fourth in any of those regions today. americans cornerstone strategy which focuses on five large cities rather than creating a comprehensive route network only exacerbates the problem. as it does not address the network deficiencies unamerican versus united and delta. simply put, american has hubs in dallas, chicago, los angeles to connect people and strong
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international gateways in jfk in miami. a very strong route network believes a large hole in the network up and down the east coast. that means america cannot easily serve the popular and highly lucrative east coast region which causes it to miss out on the enormous source of corporate business as well as consumers to travel up and down the eastern seaboard. network gaps like this were acceptable a few years ago when every airline had some. with the breath and scale of the new united, the new delta, that is no longer the case. american is steadily losing corporate share to their larger competitors and they will never be able to get it back without a comparable network. a combination with u.s. airways would create such a network. we have taken a long, hard look and we know that together we can build the greatest airline in the world, one that can compete more effectively with the networks of united, delta, and others. together, american and u.s. airways can connect more communities and provide greater
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benefits for americans, creditors, and shareholders than either airline could do. furthermore, we would also save thousands of jobs and offer better competition and long term opportunities for employees of both airlines. our networks are extremely complementary, very little overlap and thus no need to scale back the service that of -- either airline offers. with this network added, american mobile to connect travelers to the destination is using a much more efficient and practical system of runs. for instance, trying to convince travelers in buffalo to fly anywhere on the east coast or throughout the southeast via connection in chicago which is something customers simply want to. a more comprehensive route network would provide across the united states which has come to rely on major carrier service
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for the economic well-being. the combined airline would maintain all excessive focus, seven habits of those cities will continue to reap benefits of having a major domestic airline as a next-door neighbor. in addition, those cities throughout the country that have led a connected the three other u.s. areas or american would suddenly have many more travel options. american is now before the fifth place in all major leagues of the united states. a merger with result in a much more competitive recent -- the largest and most lucrative region. first in the central region entered on the west coast. such a network would appeal to customers and allow the new american to once again compete for the title of the world's leading airline, which is something its employees have been missing in logging for for a very long time. you don't need to take my word for all of this. in our industry there are enormous amounts of data regarding airline performance, including routes flown, price
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and profitability, all of which are filed with government agencies. all of this publicly available data has been exhaustively analyzed by numerous parties seeking to compare and evaluate the different options available. every single independent analyst on wall street and elsewhere who has taken the time to go through that data and learn the facts has decided that a merger with u.s. airways is in the best interest of american airlines, creditors, and the future shareholders. moreover, almost all analysts look at the data and then considered the cornerstone strategy have included it will not solve american network strategy. americans and their advisers have seen that -- come to the same conclusion. evidence of the financial creditor support has found that trading prices of american unsecured bonds which were trading around $0.20 per dollar prior to the news of u.s. airways are now trading in over $0.60. so, if the merger would benefit consumers, create a more
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competitive industry, and do all these nice things for employees and creditors, why is it -- and if they want to study, a good idea. the question is, why is it not happening? i can tell you, we have learned that timing is everything. we believe that the best course for all stakeholders is to affect the merger with american during that process from a financial perspective, chapter 11 can shield american for many transactional expenses but -- it offers a better environment to work out details likely optimization, 80 contracts, credit arrangements and facility issues. providing more benefits to employees. furthermore, the employees' support a merger during bankruptcy. that really matters, especially to the customer service business. lastly, u.s. airways is here now , and we are ready to do this
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now. that is not -- there is no guarantee they'll be the case forever. the outside world would stand by. that wasn't the case. in the very well may not be the case in the future. we believe the time for action is now. as part of the earlier commitment to a merger protocol last week american announced its plan to open merger talks with interested parties in the near future. we are pleased with this development and hope it means we will finally give a chance to present our plan any fair and balanced process. we also believe it is more important than ever to ensure the process is, indeed, fair, transparent, and credible. all we want is a fair chance to present a plan and compare it to all others in the process, it does not disadvantage in the options. and if it determines the best plan based on what is best for the owners of amr who are its creditors. we understand there may be as
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many as four other airlines included in this merger, and we welcome the competition. we are certain that any objective analysis will conclude that the best plan for the creditors, employees, customers of american is a merger with u.s. air ways during the bankruptcy process. now, before i close, i am going to take a moment to talk about the american airlines' labor leaders who are here today and represent over 55,000 american employees. in this story american tells, the company free labor union for the offenders. so fiercely obtained excessive wages and benefits at the expense of the company's long-term prospects. over the past few months i had a great fortune to work with the leaders of all three of these units, and i can tell you, these people have acted in the best interest of their members and the best interest of american airlines of a long-term. it does so with tremendous foresight, wisdom, and professionalism. the decision to come out in
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support of a merger was an unprecedented move on their part and is one of the great untold stories of this process so far. some people improperly characterized the support as being driven by u.s. airways willingness to pay their members more. as they will tell you, the captain proposals and american proposals is not very large. the support is not driven by short-term gains, but rather by the fact that they have taken the time to study the long-term strategic underpinnings of each plan. they have hired advisers to help them and have listened and led. in the end, they support this merger because they understand the best thing for their members is a strong competitive burst airline with a long-term strategic advantage. lucky to have these toward-looking leaders representing them, and i'm proud to be working with them. thank you all. now in closing, some of you may know i am a big fan of bob
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dylan. i sometimes are his lyrics and some of my speeches, so i will do it again. as i think about this process and where we are, the lyric that comes to mind is, you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. what he meant was, there are some things you just know. you can spend a lot of time to get a thrill of analysis, listening to the pros and cons, waiting for more from patient, but that just a bit is the situation, and you get tied up in the process. you don't need. you don't need all of that to tell you what you already know. this is one of those cases. you already know what the right answer is. everyone on wall street knows. the employers to employees of american airlines know it. the creditors watching the bond prices know it. the median as it. now the public needs to know what. that is where you all come in. by the way, i heard theresa say the media cannot applaud. feel free to applaud any time that you want.
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the public has a lot invested in the outcome of american, which means it as a major stake in americans process. please hold everyone's feet to the fire as the situation unfolds. asked of questions and demand real answers. cat through the noise in the process and get to the substance don't wait for the weatherman to tell you what you already know. there are 100,000 jobs at stake here. their fate should not be decided in the dark. a thank-you very much. i am now opening the floor for questions and will be delighted to take tough questions and give real answers. [applause] >> how can u.s. airways enter into another merger when it has yet to integrate the employee groups on the last one in 2005? >> can i have a different question? [laughter] happy to answer that one.
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is actually one of they ones. indeed, we still are working through integration issues with the american west u.s. airlines' pilots. a problem there without boring everyone in the room is seniority integration, which has , unfortunately, resulted in litigation that has been tied up in federal court. once that is a result, we will have a seniority list and get those pilots moved to a contract which has been a long process that i don't think anyone anticipated but is what it is. we're running their airlines extremely well despite that, and back up to have that resolved, and it has to go through a process. the nice thing about this merger is since the time we closed the u.s. air wis america west transaction there has been federal legislation . that law now requires that if, indeed, there are unions from two separate airlines that they need to go debt arbitration. once that binding arbitration is
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complete, that is the list. it's federal law. had that been in place back when the merger happened we would not have this problem. if we do a merger with american, that will be the process by which its government and will actually resolve this problem. so that is not the reason we want to do the merger. we will get this resolved on our own, but it is one of the benefits of it. >> why aren't any of airways -- u.s. airways union representatives to today? >> because there ought to work working to represent u.s. airways. look. the situation is this. at this point we had to go workout transactions and agreements with others and have not had to do so with u.s. airways. i assure you. if we get to the point where we are merging the airlines you have the u.s. airway leader standing shoulder to shoulder with these guys in support of the merger. >> what are you doing to work while other issues with your flight attendants in their
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contracts? >> flight attendants, we did reach, with the negotiating committee, we reach an agreement. they rejected it. unfortunately, back to negotiations and hope those negotiations yield a result that can be ratified. negotiations have started or have been today. and so we are highly optimistic we can get that done. >> will you guarantee u.s. airway employees in your e? >> this is the process. we have well learned in our merger, it has been left to the unions to determine. indeed, what i know is the labor leaders here understand what the big issue is, and they will make sure the process that takes place is fair to all employees, and i am highly confident about that. not the least bit concerned about how that process will be managed. >> is directly, employee groups and airline mergers have
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suffered as management and executives of prospered. why would the proposed merger be any different? >> well, not sure i accept the premise, but what i can tell you about this merger is -- again, as evidenced by the support of the labor unions here today, it's good for the employees of both airlines. one that will provide for both companies the ability to have an airline that has job security that neither airline can provide today. you create a stronger airline that allows for more job security. the fact that the two networks are able to produce revenues that neither of us can produce together by combining an orange and generating more networks allows us to pay more. all of those are great for employees of both companies and why we have the employee support >> other than the three largest unions on the creditors' committee, who else has committed to your approach to an alternative to american airlines stand-alone plan? >> well, again, as i noted in my
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remarks, everyone that we talked to is in support of this one. take the time to learn the facts as for the actual creditors' committee, those that are comprised, we have not had the opportunity yet to get to present. when we do i am certain we will have the unanimous favre so long as we have of fair process. >> according to the new york times demint stand to make 60 million ceo of american when it emerges from bankruptcy. you think that is why they're fighting a merger with u.s. air wis? >> come let's see. i find it noteworthy that the only opposition that seems to exist to this merger is the senior management. you know, again, we have employee support among bondholder support. we don't have the support of the american airlines senior management team.
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i don't want to guess as to why it is they don't support it. but we are hopeful that we can get their support at some point in the future. >> will you seek antitrust approval for a merger before the end of the year? >> we would like to. that is part of the process that i keep referring to we have done a tremendous amount of work looking at this commendation from of a regulatory perspective. do not anticipate there will be any regulatory issues, but there is a final process that has to be followed. we need americans' participation in that event. we are hopeful that the process that you still have not seen yet but have been told exists will include filings like that to happen in a timely manner so that we are on equal footing as a stand-alone plan in terms of timing. >> to the merger proceed with u.s. air raids objecting to any possible antitrust review
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divestiture requirement that might focus on profit dca or its other have been a focus cities? >> again, we have done a considerable amount of review and do not believe the combined airlines would require any sort of divestitures in order to receive doj approval. but, it we will wait for that process to unfold and see if the doj agrees. certainly, the work we have done with our advisers would indicate that the divestitures will be required. >> the american pilots will soon be voting on a tentative agreement. how does a yes or no vote by the pilots impact of the situation for u.s. air? >> yeah, this one we struggle with a little bit. the reality is, that is up to american to the side. but we have found a lot of them have my e-mail address. a year from a lot of them. many of them are asking just that question. what they want to know is him if we ratify what that it is closer
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to a merger? that is what they're being told. and don't speak for david and subtly mess up this process. i want to tell you what we're being told. that is, they are hearing from their advisers that it is the right thing to do. they want to get to a merger, which they do to ratify a contract. that has, as you might imagine, a little bit of cognitive dissonance and it. is not maybe that's true for to understand, but the reality is some, as we talk restructuring, the same thing. that is american has made it quite clear to the process that the merger process will follow. these labor contracts being put in place. so actually agreeing with american and putting a process in place on a stand-alone should lead as closer to getting a merger done, so i believe, again, we should leave this for david to talk about, but that is
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our understanding. indeed, ratification would be good for the merger which is why most of the american employees are leaning toward ratification because they believe it is best for a merger. ..
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the contracts that we have offered our only better then the even more consistent very contracts and indeed as i said in my remarks they are not that much different now as american has increased their offers. so the fact of all this is when we get done with this, we will have the ability to generate revenues like the larger competitors like d. i believe you should be able to pay the same amount and that is what our proposal does. it works these employees up to similar levels as their counterparts at united dealt and we think that's fair and there is no doubt that the combined airline can afford to do that and we are happy to do so. >> is u.s. air making a profit due to artificially low wages? >> we make a profit. let me talk a little bit about u.s. airways model. it is different and a fair
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question is all those things you said about american and its network deficiencies can be said about u.s. airways and it's somewhat true. we indeed a u.s. airways have an network even smaller than american and therefore have less capability than american and. we do two things different, and one is we focus on places where we truly have a competitive advantage. we are the number one carrier in each of our hubs in charlotte, phoenix, philadelphia. we do have, we are the largest carrier so we focus on places where we do well and that is .1. someone different from where american is. .2, we do have lower cost. you can't have an airline that has revenue disadvantage to its competitors and have the same cost structure. that is what happened to the old u.s. airways and it has happened a lot of times. we understand that and our people understand that so what we do instead is we have an
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airline that has lower cost that can match our others. we do indeed do that with lower labor costs. we have to do that. our employees know that and we are required to sometimes contentious labor negotiations but always withhold information about what we can and can't do in that model works well in that model can work forever. the good news there isn't a lot of room for increases over the long-term standalone. by merging these two airlines that argument goes away and that is why it does so well because it allows us with the american employees to get to higher wages and more than u.s. airways can ever do standalone. >> is in merger a necessity to stay afloat? do your employees need this to stay secure? >> absolutely not and we will prove this better than i can say it. we are doing extremely well on a stand-alone basis. we are the smallest of the
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network care center merger in 2005. we are much smaller than united or tilted that we are producing results that are as good or better than theirs because of the model i just described and we keep doing that forever. >> what would a combined u.s. airway and american fleet look like considering america's massive fleet order last year? >> again, since the two route networks are so nicely complementary, we need all the airplanes both fleets of the combined fleet will look much like americans and u.s. airways today which will be a very new fleet. the new aircraft that american has put in place we will of course honor because we will need those airplanes as american uses them for their standalone. >> what steps are your airline taking to better compete with foreign competition? >> our airline being u.s. airways doing what i said, going to where we have a competitive advantage in doing that well flying in and out of our hubs
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and doing so very well. this combined airline can do much better. this foreign competition is real and one that we all should be worried about to the commercial aviation because there are others in other countries that have much bigger advantages than we do and really do have national aviation policies in their countries and it should be a concern for all of us but this new airline would be much better equipped than either american standalone or u.s. airways standalone with the. >> what are your views on airline consolidation at the regional level? >> lester to jake and certainly can make sense. i know a little bit about it that there are indeed you know maybe more regional airlines than one would expect there to be at this point in time but you don't get the same kind of benefits you do with consolidation of the mainline because the regional for the most part fly in and out of network supporting the larger
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network carriers so you don't get the kind of network consolidation and benefits that you would with u.s. airways or american. >> what is your view of the 50 seat flying in airways regional fleet and what is the future of the 50 seat market? >> i need one of our pilots for this one. hi guys. anyway, we at u.s. airways have a couple of contracts for 50 seat jets and some of them were done to save the old u.s. airways from bankruptcy before we arrived. those are contracts we abide by and they can tear them up or start over and we wouldn't have as many commuters that we don't have that luxury know do we want it. we are quite happy with what we have now but the reality is we have more 50 suitors than we would like. over time we will correct that issue but right now --
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[inaudible] >> what would be the impact of a merger the merger on ticket prices? >> well, ticket prices, ticket prices are hard to project that i don't think the merger itself would have any impact positively or negatively for the most part. we price our product to compete with united, and d and southwest and others in the exact same airlines. what i know is it would create a third competitor to united d which doesn't exist today and those two airlines i can't stress enough how the networks to u.s. global carrier alliances frankly better stronger than anything else and this in this merger would create a third competitor to them, an alliance that can compete with by taking u.s. airways out and it makes one that much stronger so it's good for competition competing with those two larger lines.
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>> will that help eliminate luggage fees and will there've will there've been no hard layoffs and will therefore be -- be more -- on planes? >> who turned that one in? the industry today, part of what we have done to get ourselves well is do a better job i think of charging for the service is some customers wanted and not charging those that others don't want in baggage fees is one of those. there's a huge fundamental change in our business model, one that makes sense. those of you that avail yourself and handing out your bags was rather then you handing it back to us require an infrastructure but just think about when you check in and out today because the technology and the only reason there's any airline real estate outside of security is with check-in baggage.
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they want and they shouldn't and i'm not suggesting you can do that. there is a cost to it and those that do it should and that includes all the people running the baggage in between airplanes. all that exists in that service has a large cost in a huge amount of capital and the baggage fees seeks to charge those who want to use it and not charge those who don't. i think it's a better model so again we certainly have a lot of customer feedback about it. that is not our goal to end up doing things that alienate our customers but i do believe we certainly have better customer acceptance of it and we still have airlines that don't do it and that keeps us all the way it should work. it's a competitive business and people can choose it or not and we have chosen to do it and again it's the right model for the business today. >> by charging customers a luggage via drives more than to bring things onto the airplane creating congestion. what is your solution to that?
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>> you are reading a card with your own question. i see where this is going. [laughter] yeah, look, indeed when you charge for people to check eggs, they will try to figure out ways to get the bags down to the airplane that maybe don't fit on the airplane. you know, but we are not going to try to fix that problem. other than charging people to get down there. i will say that. what we need to do is work very hard to try and make sure people understand that if you tried to check them in advance and pay the fee and we work really hard is an airline to make sure those situations occur in people to get out of the gate with bags that are too large that we accommodate them. the real goal here would be to figure out why they don't get
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their -- [inaudible] >> you could charge them a double fee if it does not fit in you have to accommodate them. how much outsourcing of jobs goes into the u.s. airline industry? >> i don't know that i know the answer to that question. there are certainly some amounts of work that is not done entirely by airline employees, i know that. on that note i'm happy to report we at u.s. airways in the last year brought in all of our reservations that have been outsourced at the time of the u.s. airways bankruptcy. we have some of our reservations agents on the hill with members of congress talking about that event which we are very proud of. we now have 100% of our reservations being done by u.s. airways employees in the united states and we are happy about that result. >> how much inspection of foreign-made parts takes place to ensure the safety of american carriers and are us-made parts better?
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>> any work that is done outside of the united states is regulated by the faa and by the same systems so there is no concern nor should anyone have any concern that work done in outside repairs made outside of the united states is the standard any lower than we have in the united states. >> how has the three-hour tarmac delay rule of effective airline operations and do you think it's fair? >> i think the three-hour tarmac rule is a great example of what happens when we in the business don't do a good job taking care of our customers. i can tell you that we will go through the data. the reality is that the rule probably is worse for customers than better. there probably are cancellations that occurred that wouldn't have occurred before because we have to bring the airplane back but that is not the point. the point is that is a lot now and it's a law because we as industries did a horrible job in
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several cases taking care of our customers. when you do that to get legislation and the message to all of us in the business is we should not do things like that or we will get more legislation so we are committed to making sure we are taking care of customers and doing things every day. with an attitude that is in favor of the customer so we don't get ourselves in the circumstances again so the three-hour tarmac rule it was something enforced upon us because we didn't do things right ourselves and this will happen to us in the future we don't do things right in the future. >> should the u.s. relax its restriction on foreign ownership of airlines? why or why not? >> well, we don't have a real strong position on this at u.s. airways. i don't think it makes a large difference, in the business. from a free-market perspective, i think it's certainly there can be a case made that why do you have these restrictions because they don't seem to make a lot of markets and then i would be
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hard-pressed to argue that there is some sort of national defense concern of having foreign ownership of u.s. carriers. so from that perspective i think you make a strong argument that they shouldn't exist but having said that relaxing them i don't think would have a mater impact on our business. it's not as if there's a shortfall of capital in the united states. it's not as though we need financing. and furthermore, the fact is at least right now the majority of the labor unions are concerned about it because they are concerned about jobs so until we can get that address didn't figure it out together, something that will make sense it's not going to happen anyway so again it is one that i do believe is hard to argue from a free-market perspective for also one that we have in place now and i suspect we'll stay in place for quite some time. >> what is the most important thing the federal government can do or not do to help u.s. airways or other u.s. airlines today?
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>> just let us compete. ideally lower taxes. i am sure you're all aware of this that's 20% of more what you pay in a ticket goes to taxes and fees. it would be nice if the wall had to pay less than that, but indeed that is the case today so i think i will give you a two-part answer. the best thing to do would be to lower that tax burden on the industry. i will be pragmatic and suggest it's probably not going to happen in the future so instead what we would ask is just to please don't raise those taxes and please don't do things that make it harder for us to compete. this is a business that is hard enough as it is, and one that we all struggle to make even modest profits in but a large part of that problem is because of government regulation and government intervention and not allowing airlines to compete like other businesses so we just
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asked for the opportunity to compete. don't raise our tax burden, lowered if you can put in place policies that recognize things like mergers and alliances. as other businesses have done over time and provide airlines the same opportunity. >> just u.s. airways predict any backlash from philadelphia or pittsburgh. >> absolutely not because this is good for -- again, we would combine the two route networks fly to all the hubs we currently maintain its citizens and customers of those communities would have we have more service and more -- that is one of the great things about it. >> as you said in your speech you begin your airline to read american airlines working with tom morton. is the sum of this merger battle personal? >> what are you laughing about?
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's. >> none of it is personal. tom and i have been friends for a long time. we have a disagreement about what is best for american airlines. it is not a personal disagreement and none of it is remotely personal. what what is about, my perspective is 100,000 jobs and doing the best we can for the people, for those 100,000 people and i don't think any individual or small group of individual should get in the way of that. we me don't plan to. we think american airlines should do that either. i'm not suggesting that is what they are doing but what i do think we should do a -- and again i'm highly confident we do that, the plan for right now is the merger with u.s. airways. tom at this point disagrees. >> you are currently in
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negotiations with the union. how can you bargain in good faith when you're reporting it other unions from another airline? how can you bargain in good faith? >> well we are indeed in negotiations with a number of our employees and those negotiation takes place in good faith as there is well under the assumption u.s. airways will be a stand-alone airline and we will get those contracts done and results under those premises and nothing about that has change. those negotiations take place in the exact same terms that they would if none of this was going on as they should and we will get the contracts with those people on those terms. now, i think a better question is how with would the negotiations affecting the merger? if they're not done then we moved into another process there. but nothing about the contracts that are being negotiated today are affected at the fact that we happen to be personally in this
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merger. >> of the merger goes through would you take american headquarters out of fort worth? >> we would not. if indeed the headquarters would remain where they are in the metroplex at fort worth. we are well aware of the fact that the two airlines, the stronger brand and the american brand as i said, it been there myself. i love that brand. and i know it's a great airline and i know it can be a great airline again so we think that's the correct brand for the company and i furthermore happen to believe that any airline should be headquartered in fort worth so that is where we will be. >> if this merger goes through what you stay in the star alliance? >> we would not. u.s. airways would move. it is one of the nice things again about the merger but happens. u.s. airways standalone is extremely happy to get star alliance.
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we believe it's the strongest alliance so we are very happy with their position in star but these combined airlines, what moves the u.s. airways revenues 13 billion revenues are so into one world, that would have a nice balancing effect for the three alliances. oneworld has fallen behind much like american has fallen behind and -- [inaudible] so by moving u.s. airways into one world it creates three much more balanced alliances which by the way i think his wife willy wash yesterday made positive comments about the merger as well because the best thing for one world is for u.s. airways and american to merge. >> as you just said willie walsh said it was an aggressive strategy that put this merger in the table. what is your plan b at this doesn't work wax. >> well, we are highly hopeful that the process has been laid out. which again i will note the
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process we understand exists is the right process and there won't need to be a plan b. it will indeed provide a fair and level playing field for all postals to be reviewed and we couldn't be more confident in that case our proposal would prevail. so that is where we expect to go. i don't really like to speculate as to what happens if that doesn't happen because i'm not sure but i will tell you but speculation in this case. from the time we started this, people have been telling us, this hasn't been done before. there is no playbook. so we have been doing a lot of -- and indeed if we find that process doesn't go the way we hope it does we will call another. i'm not going to speculate on it but again, 100,000 jobs at stake here and that is too important to let a small group of people decided shouldn't happen so we will do what we need to do to get it done.
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>> if american airlines emerges as a stand-alone do you think 100,000 peoples jobs will be at stake? >> that is not what that card says. [laughter] reading these cards over her shoulder and said nothing like that. i am happy to answer that question. yeah look, here's what i believe. between the two companies there are 100,000 employees between u.s. airways and american and i believe what is best for those 100,000 people is to work with the strongest airline, one that can compete with northwest and. i am not suggesting that if america goes standalone almost 100,000 jobs go away. they certainly don't. i don't think that would be the case but of whai know is those 100,000 people would be working much as they have since 2001 with less security about their future, less ability for progression in their careers,
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less ability to be paid as much as the people at united and. all of those things and indeed over time there will be fewer jobs. i'm not trying to suggest 100,000 will go away but 100,000 peoples lives are worse off if we don't do this merger than if we do. >> you see you spoke of airlines at the customer service business. have you ever tried to reach a live person by calling u.s. airways on your company's number and if you don't have that, i have got it right here. [laughter] >> let's try it. i am not going to call it in fear that it may not work. [laughter] i am certain i would get a live person. here is the answer to this question theresa which is, the large number of phonecalls that go into any airline's reservation system do not require talking to a live person, so the system is set up
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in a very friendly way we believe with a lot of resources by a lot of people to navigate those callers who do not need to talk to an individual, to have their problem taken care of through an automated process. that allows us to keep or cause down and allows better customer service and that is his wife is why when you first call and yeah you'll find yourself talking to someone who is not a live human being. although they sound pretty much like one. but that is the reason that program exists and it works really very well. >> is there a press zero option for a live person? [inaudible] [laughter] >> before we get to the last question and we are almost out of time. i know you are disappointed about that. before we asked the last question i have a couple of announcements to make. i want to let you know better of coming speakers. we have toby cause growth presidency of the cleveland clinic who will discuss health care policy in the wake of the
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historic affordable act for olympic on july 24 judy woodruff and gwen ifill coanchors a "pbs newshour" 2012 election coverage will discuss the complex issues that are in place for the run run-up to november 6 general election and on august the 28th commandant of the u.s. marine corps will discuss the roles of the marines as americans crisis response force. secondly and most importantly i would like to present our guests with their traditional mvp mug. >> thank you very much. [applause] when will we get peanuts back on air flights and when will we get to see movies on air domestic flights? >> you can watch any movie you want on your ipad. [laughter] or other personal devices which most of our customers prefer to the movie that i watched on the competitors flight last night. [laughter]
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>> was at research flying on a competitive flights? >> yeah inconvenience. it was research. anyway, the fact of the matters this. there is a lot of fuel tied up in everything that goes into having movies on board. the movies are important and the vast majority of customers don't watch them anymore and they do indeed bring their own personal entertainment on which is better than what the airlines provide so it's a complete waste of your fair to give you a movie you don't want to watch and charge you for it which is what happened so we are not planning on doing that. peanuts. i don't have that answer to tell you the truth. there is a problem with peanut allergies. we have found the pretzels are easier. the olympics are coming out. is this event good for the airlines even if it's not for ralph lauren?
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[laughter] >> well i don't know. it depends on who wins but if you want -- one of these events that drives a lot of traffic in and out out of the limbic city but generally not a lot of trips as people come in and stay a long time and even people that were going to be traveling on business decide there's nowhere they're going during the olympics so it's not necessarily the best thing for an airline to have the olympics or even the convention in your hub. we are happy to be having the democratic commission at the charlotte hub but don't update germ model to assume we are going to make a lot more money because that that is what happens. people flying safer long-time and others avoided so we are not complaining about that. it does not have a huge impact on airline revenues. >> how about a round of applause for our speaker today? thank you for coming. [applause] i would also like to thank the national press club staff including journalism is good in
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practice and for organizing today's event and finally here's a reminder that you can find more information about national press club at our web site at www.press.org. thank you and we are adjourned. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]
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a copy boy at "the new york times." i was in a training program when i got out of the army for "the wall street journal." be they builds a 4 million-dollar facility for the band which was about 40 people. it has separate rooms for everybody. i mean you should spend
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$4 million on an elementary school. spain now the soviet -- may become but there's a wolves in the woods and we saw that. saddam hussein invaded kuwait. the mideast might have become a nuclear powder keg. our energy supplies held hostage so we did what was right and what was necessary. we destroyed the threat and locked the tyrant in the prison of his own country. [applause] >> 10 million of our fellow americans are out of work, tens of millions more work harder for lower pay. unemployment always goes up a little before a recovery begins. but unemployment only has to go
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up on one more person before a real recovery can begin. [applause] >> this week on q&a, former navy commander kirk lippold discusses his new book about the attack on the uss cole in title front burner. c-span: kirk lippold, former captain of the uss cole why did you take the blame for 9/11 in your book? >> guest: i don't think i took the blame but i certainly felt that i bore some responsibility. it was my job years ago when i raised my right hand and swore
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an oath to support and defend the constitution. that meant defending my nation and when our country is attacked i was on active duty at the time. i clearly been three major terrorist incident. i was familiar with al qaeda and i just felt the degree of burden that i should have been saying or doing something having been at the focal point of that firestorm back on 10/12 in 2000 that i should have been saying something to our leadership to anybody that might have listened that could have done something. c-span: right away in your knowledge months up front you say the war on terror started with us. explained. >> guest: the way i look at it is when you attack buildings or embassies, whether it's the world trade center one, khobar towers or the embassies in africa those are things that house and represent u.s. interest. when you attack a worship that is different. that's something that defends the u.s. citizens and our interests around the world. and you try to take away nation's ability to protect
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itself, it's an act of war. c-span: let's go back to the beginning. i'm sure you told the story many times but what day was to ship you were commanding bombs? >> guest: october 12, 2000. c-span: what were the circumstances? >> guest: we have been operating in the mediterranean for about six and half weeks, had come through the suez canal on the 19th, excuse me the 19th of october down the red sea. we had been held back until the last possible minute in the european theater of operations and consequently we have to go at the high-speed transit 25 knots which is 30 miles an hour. that's double the normal speed and it was because of that transit that as we went through the strait of bethel man deaf and rounded the southwest corridor of these peninsula we were below 50%. a ship like the uss cole carries over half-million gallon so we have to had to find some place to stop. because of a drawdown in the naval forces over number of
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years if not decades, we have gone from a navy of 4000 ships following world war ii to a ship -- shy of 315 ships the morning of october 12. they looked at two ports for us to refuel. aiden at the southwest corner of the arabian peninsula djibouti on the east coast of africa and said aiden is the safer port. that is where we are going to pull you into refuel. expect to be there for six to eight hours taking on a little over a quarter million gallons. c-span: yemen today sounds like a headquarters al qaeda. what was it then and i know you even asked this question about, what were you doing in aiden yemen? >> guest: our nation had made a decision that a couple of years before the uss cole pulled into that port to do engagement on a broader level with the yemeni government and with president saleh and -- and we decided the yemen or aiden was a
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good port for navy ships to pull into. it was a way for us to have a refueling port. it was also a way because introduced money into their economy and help them out in a very bilateral type of engagement. we put mining teams in there to help the country the mind following the civil war in the early '90s so there were a number of activities going on. what we weren't doing with investing in our intelligence and what was going on in the country. of everything -- i think every ship that operated in the region if there was a general threat from al qaeda and obviously we have the bombings two years before in tanzania and nairobi kenya. there was nothing untoward to indicate there was a threat to navy ships in the fifth fleet responsibility. c-span: first of all what is the name -- where does it come from press. >> guest: uss cole is named after darrell s. kohl, a marine sergeant who was posthumously awarded the medal of honor for his actions on iwo jima in world
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war ii. c-span: how old was the ship when you were in yemen? >> guest: foreigner half years old. she had been commissioned in the navy, and the official ceremony was in june 1996 oliveri new destroyer, modern equipment. shia argument one deployment and came back to the annie and had gone through a small maintenance and retrofit. machen had done the training cycle at 60 months before he deployed in august of 2000. c-span: how long had you been on her and what was your rank and position? >> guest: on october 12, 2000-in command of the ship for about 15 months and i was a commander in the united states may be. c-span: explain how a man or women could be a commander on a ship that silvie the captain? >> guest: the way the navy works it doesn't matter whether you are in charge of patrol craft or a navy captain in charge of a cruiser or aircraft carrier. you earn during the time your command that honorary title of captain. c-span: how big is the ship?
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>> guest: the uss cole is 505 feet long 66 feet wide and 8400 tons. c-span: how many sailors and how many enlisted? >> guest: the normal is about 25 officers and 275 enlisted. we were a little bit shy of 100 that morning. c-span: how many were killed and how how many were injured? >> guest: they were 17 killed and 37 wounded and awarded purple hearts for their injuries. royko exactly what happened and at what time? >> guest: we had pulled in for refueling around 910 go 30 and in the middle of the harbor we were starboard side. i turn the ship around in case there to get underway in a hurry. at about 10 times the 30 we started refueling the ship and the clock was ticking at that point. during the course of operations that morning by supply officer came to me and made arrangements for three barges to come onto the ship in addition to the normal arrangement the agents
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reported me to remove sewage and top off our fresh water tanks. we know we wanted to get rid of our hazardous material plastics which would normally be dumped at sea so we arranged for three garbage barges to come out and by 11:00 that morning two boats came out in the crew was unloading trash. i turned back to my desk and did routine paperwork when at 11:18 i heard a thunderous explosion. you could feel all 505 feet quickly and violently thrust to the right. it's almost like we hung for second in second in air and the ship was doing this three-dimensional twist. we came back down in the water. the lights went out in the ceiling tiles popped out to everything on my desk lifted up about a foot and slam back down. i literally grabbed the underside of my desk and embraced until the ship stopped moving and i could stand it. i went to the door of my cabin and looked down the hallway, this gray cloud came toward me. there was a sound on the ship
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and i didn't know why but that cloud silently pushed over me. i could smell the dust. i could also smell this metallic -- talented and what it was. within a matter of seconds i knew we had been attacked. i knew it wasn't a fuel explosion. when i turned the ship around in the harvard -- harbor, i should've been left. the only thing on the left side of the ship was open harbor so i knew something had come alongside and detonated. c-span: houston did you know people were injured and killed? >> guest: i wouldn't know immediately. intuitively and knew that we are going to have injuries beyond the ship force capability to treat. the first thing i did not knowing at that moment in time and didn't know if we will be boarded 19 know if there would be a follow-on attack. i went back in to my darkened cabin unlock this the safe right kept the keys to the weapons on the ship, the torpedoes and the five-inch gun.
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i grabbed to clips of ammunition and went outside the ship and stood there for second and took a deep wrath request i looked around the watch team stationed in the middle of the ship was gone. the wooden podium had been blown to pieces and was scattered across the deck of the wires that formed a high-frequency radio antenna were snapped off. there is 30 but water dripping off of everything and every member i have sworn that oath to support and defend the constitution. i would be willing to give my life if necessary to do so and i'm now faced with that decision. i headed toward the port side and ongoing know what is going to find. c-span: what was your first reaction? >> guest: when i first got there the chief gunner made was establishing a permanent or around the ship and the rest of the purity can. i went over to the portside and looked over and you could tell in that moment that there was an attack. the explosion of blonde blown metal into the ship. something was pointed out were. where. unfortunately there for more
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drafts alongside the ship. the first thing that came to my mind was one of these have blown up. it turns out the two garbage barges alongside the ship had left at about 11:15 transiting across the harbor. what we didn't know know as al qaeda have been in that port for a number of months of serving us, observing the navy ship in the third bar to k masqueraded as a garbage barge. we were operating under peacetime rules of engagement. and the people thought naturally it was the third garbage barge. came down the side of the ship and two guys were in it stood up in wake of the crew. they came to the exact spot where the previous barge barges in and initiated the explosion. c-span: using your book that the guys waved and smiled and blew themselves up as well as the people on your ship. what kind of people are these? >> guest: what you are seeing is a very dedicated and focused
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in me. they will stop at nothing to further their ideology, to try and get -- you have to remember what bin laden's entire decoration of forces. he wanted all u.s. forces out of the middle east and then they wanted to expand the radical islam caliphate. beyond the middle east to take over the whole world. fryco i want to come back to some of this but i want to jump to 9/11. i want to jump to september 9, 2001. where were you? is. >> guest: that morning i had been briefed by the cia. i received a call by a former commanding officer of mine working up there and i had driven up to the george washington parkway arrived at the old headquarters building, walked inside and in some ways it was like a movie set to me. a 16-inch granite seal on the floor in the main entryway there. to the left is the single star for all those who would died in the oss precursor to the organization to the cia and on
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the rightward row after war of people who had given their life is part of the agency to protect their country. we started a briefing at 7:00 that morning and it went for an hour and a half. at the end i was talking with mr. charlie allen who was one of the assistant deputy dictors there and i said thank you sir for taking time that america doesn't understand. i believe it's going to take a seminal event probably in this country with hundreds of thousands dying before americans realize we are at war. he said well we are doing our best to make sure that doesn't happen. 20 minutes later we watched as the first plane hit. i looked at the tv with the smoke coming out of the world trade center wondering, a beautiful clear day like this, what could fly into the side of the building? you could also tell by the size of the whole something wasn't quite right. a few minutes later i was standing in the counterterrorism center literally about to walk into meet --
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when we watched in horror like the rest of the nation did win the second airplane slammed in. he was the director for counterterrorism center the cia. c-span: under what auspices were you at the cia? >> guest: i was a military officer receiving off the record briefings on what the agency knew before, during and after the attack. c-span: what were the circumstances for you in the navy at that point? what was your job? >> guest: at the time i had change of command on uss cole. in march i attended the joint forces staff college in norfolk virginia and reported to the joint chiefs of staff. the office i was doing was was called both a lead role affairs and we were dealing with a lot of international treaties and the office i was in was unique in that we were the only global strategy office. most of them are broken down by region. we were the only one that spanned the entire world as far as treaties, united nations and other multilateral issues that affected our country.
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c-span: but what was the navy saying to you about your future at that point? >> guest: at that point i career looks to be on track. c-span: you were still a commander. >> guest: i was still commander. c-span: in the navy for how long? >> guest: i had been in the navy at that point for a little over 20 years. i've been commissioner for the naval academy in 1981 and i've been told, you have a career, your potential. you don't take normal folks and send them to the joint chiefs of staff for an assignment like this so i felt very privileged to be working on the premier staff of the united states military working for the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and that whole issue would suddenly change on the morning of september 11. c-span: why? >> guest: being the only officer was global they needed to develop a strategy and policy and the office i was in was given the unique mission of crafting detainee policy. how do we put together, no we are going to answer portions in
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afghanistan, we knew we were going to capture people so if okay when we capture people who do we want to capture? that was ultimately window down to high-level taliban and al qaeda. then from that group where do we put them? initially they were looking at mazar-e-sharif and kandahar and they needed a more long-term facility away from the country because they did know how pervasive al qaeda was throughout the country of afghanistan. we looked around the world at a number places and eventually settled on this unique is a of territory called guantánamo bay. secretary rumsfeld at the time was somewhat reluctant to be building out a facility there. we would peace up a together and i think everyone remembers those horrible pictures of camp x-ray where they have this chain-link fences. the reality of it is those facilities have existed for years and that was the temporary holding facility. nobody complained them but sadly when you put terrorists in their the world went into a -- about
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it when in fact they weren't -- were being treated humanely. they were treated consistent with but not in accordance with the geneva convention. they didn't merit protection under the geneva convention. i would also have the unique opportunity of being the joint staff representative on what was called the interrogation techniques working group to determine what techniques the military would use and in handling these detainees and ultimately we decided very conservatively to only use those weapons that were in that army kill manual at the time which has since been expanded by a couple of measures but for the most part we weren't going to get into any of the areas where the other government agencies have gone. i think it was the right decision and then it was how do we three how do we repatriate them if we capture some and we did not want to have that we have gotten by mistake and was swept up on the battlefield and didn't belong in guantánamo? how do we repatriate them if they don't represent a threat?
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c-span: what you call your book front burner? >> guest: the term front burner when i made the initial voice report off the ship is code for attack on u.s. forces. c-span: you are at the pentagon working with the joint chiefs and you are still commander. you graduated from the naval academy what you're? >> guest: 1981. c-span: you have been in the navy for 20 years. wended someone who has been the navy for 20 years and is a commander expects to get promoted? >> guest: normally i was what they call it due course officer. i promoted along with the majority of -- i was never selected early for promotion so i expected to be looked at sometime around the 22 to 23 year point where promotion to captain and everything looked to be on track then. c-span: let me run a piece of recorded video with senator john warner and we will ask you about
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this. >> in the case of the cold, the check mance officer was cleared, precise and in my personal judgment did a professional job. well done. the report found that the instructions, directives and orders directed by the chief of naval naval operations central command had been violated. in fact the report stated the failure of the commanding officer to implement half of the required 62 force protection measures. further, according to the investigating officer, there were 19 protection measures that could possibly have prevented or at a minimum mitigated the effect of the attack on the uss cole. of these 19 measures, only seven were implemented by the commanding officer of the uss cole
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c-span: by the way no time was your name mentioned. that was in 2001. what are the circumstances and i don't want to get too far in the weeds because it's hard to understand all that language but what is going on here? >> guest: what you are really seeing is a senior senator who clearly did not delve into the investigation the way he should have and is manipulating facts for the purpose of a political agenda. it's very unfortunate what they senator fails to mention when he talks about half the measures not implemented is when you look at the 63 measures half of them didn't even apply to the physical circumstances we face the morning we pulled then so right off the bat half of those measures we were in the middle of the harbor. i'm not worried about access or checking vehicles coming out to the pier so they didn't apply and when you look at the other measures what he fails to mention is the only speaks about the investigating officer. that investigating officer had a narrow scope given to him from
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the investigation to only look on the ship and could take nothing else in context. he couldn't take the context of how we came to be in that port, what the intelligence was we have on board the ship, what force protection measures other ships may have followed when they were there and the investigation went further up the chain of command and was reviewed by much more experienced and senior officers than the investigating officer who was just a navy captain. they would ultimately determined that there was nothing that the crew or i could've done that morning that would have mitigated or prevented that attack and that was upheld all the way through the secretary of defense. while the senator says those things clearly either didn't read the investigation the way he should have, or he is picking facts selectively in order to paint a picture so that he can achieve an agenda that he wants. c-span: flair is uss cole headquartered? >> guest: norfolk virginia. c-span: senator --
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is from virginia. what role did he play? >> guest: he would clearly play a role two years later after the attack in january 2002. i would be selected for promotion to captain and my name would be supported by my entire chief of command in the secretary of defense secretary defense and the commander in chief president bush because what a lot of americans don't know if every officer promotion has to go to the senate and they give their advice and consent on every officer just like they do every political appointee or federal judge in the united states. so windowless went over their senator warner looked at it and basically told the navy, i don't agree with your decision to promote commander lippold. if you keep them on the list i will hold this list up and not allow any officer on this promotion was to go forward. c-span: here is former chief of naval operations burning clark. >> and this particular case was about an attack being conducted
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on the ship and in my judgment, this commanding officer was held accountable and i judged him and as you said in your statement, i found some things that i think he could've done better. that i don't believe that those things rise to the level of punishment to court-martial him or something. i didn't believe that there was the case and that is the way made my judgment. c-span: what are we watching there? >> guest: one that i would like to make very clear is that morning there was one accountable officer on board the uss cole and that was me and all it do for us poor in that investigation anything else is that that accountability determination how my ship performed before, during and after the attack. i think admiral clark is absolutely right. when he looks at it he said yes there were probably things i could've done differently when i pulled in that morning. i made a decision as every commander officer has the latitude to do based on the
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physical circumstances they face when they pull in to make a judgment decision on which force protection measures to follow and not to follow so they are specifically tailored to the situation they face and the intelligence they have available in that particular time. i made that determination. there were some measures that they didn't. the cno faucet before and rightly so was that i did not immediately inform the chain of command that i adjusted my force protection posture based on the physical circumstances that morning. he clearly said there was nothing that could've been done that would would have mitigatedr prevented the attack but i was held accountable by the chain of command. senator warner halford does not clearly and stand the difference between accountability and blame. c-span: why did he want to get in the middle of this? any idea? >> guest: the only thing i could ever surmise is that he had gotten some, he had been in discussions with some of the families that were concerned about the fact that i was being promoted. it was a very political decision
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for him. in 2002 he was up for election that fall and did not want to move it forward. c-span: he is no longer in the senate and in your book you talk about seeking a meeting with him. what year was that? >> guest: that was in 2006. c-span: why did you want to meet with him? >> guest: i had worked through the chain of command and given the navy and the department of defense every opportunity to try and push my name forward so that it could receive the advice and consent of the senate as is allowed by our constitution but i finally reached a point where it was clear that they were unwilling to put that political stake in the ground against senator warner's wishes so you have to go to the source. c-span: explain this. vernon clark was the chief of naval operations and was on your side in that hearing but later on the chairman of of the joint chiefs of staff who was also a navy man, mike mullen, did not approve of your promotion going forward. by? >> guest: you will have to ask admiral mullen. i really don't understand why
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clearly he had been supportive during the chain of command. he did a complete reversal to what they previously supported including the president. obviously he felt he knew better but the reasons behind it are still in mr. to me. c-span: who was responsible, the secretary of the navy or the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, on promotions for officer's? >> guest: the ports belonged to the secretary of navy. that is why we have civilian control of the military and it's the secretary of the navy's actual promotion board. it's not the chief of naval operations and not the chairman. they can provide advice on it but it is not their poor. c-span: in 2006 you say i want to talk to senator warner. had he spoken with him up until that point? >> guest: absolutely not. i wanted to allow my chain of command as much latitude as possible and out of the limelight of having to to deal one-on-one with the senator. i would sit down with the senator over in one of the
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meeting rooms at the senate armed services committee has. we would spend 29, excuse me 24 minutes together chatting about it and ultimately he would be unmoved and refuse to do it unless the navy was willing to put up with the full senate armed services committee hearing, reopening the uss cole investigation and looking into my promotion. c-span: usa in your book when he showed up in the morning at the meeting, there were microphones and several people there and somebody they there as to why he didn't have a lawyer or a pr person. >> guest: brian you know as well as i do they love the theatrics that go along with something like this and when i walked in, there was a table set up with a microphone setups going to a transcriptionist and they grandiosely waved her hand and said we are going to recorded and where are your people packs where's your public affairs person and your attorney to give you legal advice? i looked up my staff and the senate armed services committee
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and i said if i can't clearly articulate why i should be promoted to captain that i probably should not be captain. i will speak for myself. c-span: obviously this book has something to do with where you want to set the record straight. c-span: what the book really has to do is -- i know we had a small discussion about senator warner but the reality is i wanted the book to honor my crew because it is my crew that are the true heroes of the uss cole. they're the ones to spring into action that morning. they're the ones that saved the ship from sinking. they're the ones who kept their crewmates alive in nature and the ninth nine minutes after the attack, 32 of those people would survive. that doesn't happen by magic. c-span: how many of these people are still in touch with? >> guest: the vast majority of the crew. we are very tight group and we still stay in touch with each other almost on a daily basis whether to facebook or e-mails. c-span: you also report that you met with each of the people that
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lost their lives or were injured and he went to their families locations but one family would not see you. >> guest: that is true. i think they were still angry. they still looked at me as being the commanding officer and being responsible for having about the attack to occur. i reached out reset to their family over the years and over time but we have never officially said and met, that offer stands for my lifetime. i have talked with the parents and i have talked with the brothers of the person that was killed and we have discussed it in many ways the number of issues that surround the event itself and what went on. c-span: when did you have those meetings? >> guest: right after the investigation was released on january 19. it was that afternoon in evening that i sat down, picked up the phone and began to reach out and call the family since they initially establish contact with them to make sure they receive the investigation, answer any questions. many of them were curious why the waited until that point to reach out to them and i
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realistically told them, i said it would be unfair for me to have established any kind of relationship with you as a family for good or for bad because what if the investigation had come out and found me totally accountable and responsible for this attack and yet i tried to do that. you would have felt that i manipulated you are used to somehow. i had to wait for that investigation to run a complete and thorough course to be released before he reached out to any of those families and ultimately over the next couple of weeks we would establish a time. not to go out of me with them. when initially proposed with the navy favorite very reluctant. is a matter-of-fact than answer initially was absolute now but i know is the right thing to do and to the navy's credit they would have inslee hit densely give me a blank check to get with my command master chief who was the senior senior lessig on board and it's been three and a half weeks visiting with each of those families. c-span: when did you leave the navy? >> guest: i retired in june 2007. c-span: why did you leave next.
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>> guest: it is never a job for life and it eventually retire and you get a check every month from the government and then you find a work. c-span: why did you run for congress and when? >> guest: i ran for congress last year and 2011, aiming toward 2012. iran because in the four years that i had been out, i just took a look and said he don't spend 26 years in a great organization like thea navy and not miss a sense of service to your country? a look at the way our political situation is going in our country and i said you know i can sit on the bridges and i can talk about it and i can complain about it and make recommendations on how to improve it but if you really want to affect the direction of the course of the nation you have to roll up your sleeves and get ready to have -- go swimming in the 30 and of the -- call politics.
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.. that was the hope held by the supreme court and next thing i know i'm standing on another streetcorner going, which is happening quite realistically, that is how it works. i am hoping the next legislative session had been to nevada meets they will reform the law. we live in the 21st 21st century commotion in the primaries process for a special
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election will see what the future brings. >> host: are you going to run again? >> guest: will see what the future brings. there's a future to contribute out there. c-span: i have in my hand at something called a challenge going. you can see the size of it. i don't remember when this started, but it's been a few years ago that military people give these out and secretaries of the navy and army all of that. what is this quiet i'm asking you for a reason. just go what they are is a way that a commander can give a coin, a small token to the people working for them for an exceptional job or maybe metal is not merited, but gives them an opportunity to get these coins and notes that the commander truly cares and recognizes their superior performance. c-span: who pays for these quakes >> guest: typically in the military, a lot of times per official representation funds
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the commander does. and some commands they are not allowed to use any government funds to buy those things. they come right out of the commander's pocket. c-span: the reason i held it up and asked about it is because there was a point in your book where you are quite eerie te deum by general tommy franks. >> guest: i wouldn't say it was irritated, but astounded that the fact that he came aboard the ship a few days after the blast and was totally disconnect by the reality. he was talking about the ship date the two were combo and saying, you know, you're doing a great job here. have one of my coins. and backtracking but the sailors. it wasn't bad the crew didn't appreciate what he was doing, but from my vantage point, he was the central command commander. he was responsible for putting my ship into port and having access to the broadest level and
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should have been able to make a determination. we been completely blinded by this committee made no mention of that fact does any kind. c-span: we have video. i don't know if you've ever seen this. >> i'm interested because that's a readiness issue. and we've got that many people deployed and we don't have the ability to support them in the first people on the scene were a french medical person and then they people shortly after that -- >> that skipper had his hands full. if i can say before this body, did not salute miraculous job, both on behalf of his career and his ship. >> without any other briefing i would've turned because the ship was still afloat. c-span: surprise tgv that
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support? >> guest: actually not. he's very good at recognizing superior performance. when he was aboard that morning, he just appeared to not really, just really understand the impact that this attack and had on a benefactor reiterative gone through -- he didn't come aboard until the following monday. so we had four days, where we almost lost the ship saturday night. a ship in the initial attack was fairly stable. but on saturday night, whether through a cascading series of tragedies, where it is only operate in general, i cannot restart it despite retries. the emergency generator appeared not to work. i got it cut a hole cut a hole decided to ship to get water out and i can't initiate the spark to get the torch to work, literally we are at a point where, early sunday morning, we rescinded bucket or date for 15 minutes for 200 plus sailors
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really not uss cole to save it and finally we were able to do that. sailor ingenuity, we churn rate high-pressure air compressors to the generator and about five minutes after midnight on monday morning we restarted the generator to keep it afloat. i mean, it's an amazing testament to the crew, how well they were trained in what they did to respond to the emergency. c-span: through your books go, you show irritation about this for you got from the navy. and not only that, but the intelligence. for instance can you say the cia station chief and sonata yemen didn't even communicate with you about al qaeda. >> guest: he wouldn't communicate with me, but it's his job is a senior u.s. intelligence representative to be able to develop assets
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throughout that country and especially in the poor like aden were pull shapes and to be able to have the u.s. military and department of state, department of defense to make a determination on whether it is safe for us to be here. i made them a 27 shipped to poland a couple years and during routine operations in that port. clearly there was something going on there that he was flying to and didn't know what was going on. so you have to wonder. i want to go back a second and touch on the issue of the navy. the support i got from uss donald cook on the guided missile destroyer was absolutely phenomenal. they really cannot really take care of my crew. c-span: you were irritated by the lack of support back here in washington. >> guest: seemed like washington is keeping their distance because everybody knew this is going to turn into a blame game of what is the ship and their? who ordered it in their?
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what did you give the ship for intelligence, training protection before they pulled on their? everyone is going to duck and dodge on this, rather than be standup individuals and families accountable and responsible. it even took general a couple days to see that and say i'm the one that started the program of putting ships under that port and speak up about it. so you have to wonder, there comes a point in time around the coyote or at the tip of this here having taken a major hit, never flinched away right there and doing what is necessary to keep my ship afloat in the crusade. where were all these other people in washington and moreover they doing other than try to avoid responsibility when in fact i was seeing a ton of support my way. washington by the same token was very tied up in that particular moment with the huge influx of forces coming out to support us. c-span: when mr. president call you? president clinton. >> guest: friday night.
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we got hit on wednesday and he would call friday night. i will tell you, brian, nothing in your training calls you on tremper piercy were sitting on the back of your ship tacking president about what is just happen to your crew. c-span, descend with you? >> guest: less than a minute. he said the thoughts and prayers of the american people are with you. you do in a great job keeping the ship afloat. at that point the middle east are starting to unravel a bit. with the following day's attack at the embassy in the british embassy in. you had the anti-fighter kicked out earlier that week. a number of issues starting to pop up throughout the middle east that he had his hands full bore on a strategic and broader scale than just one navy ship and a port of aden bombed by al qaeda. while important to man the larger strategic perspective, is looking at the entire pattern of attacks starting to occur throughout the middle east and is wondering, is this a signal
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for a larger war that may be breaking out not only al qaeda, but larger areas throughout the middle east. >> you said earlier argyria 19 airpark cannot come and share the 19 of what you're? prematurely and 18, 2001. c-span: how about president bush? did he give you any more attention? talking about the uss cole when he came into power. >> guest: absolutely none. when he came into port, the administration let that day, secretary or deputy secretary wolfowitz said the information on cole is still said they had an attitude of forward-looking, not backward at and consequently uss cole became a footnote in history. they ignored it, moved on as the new administration. we have watched the clinton administration do nothing, literally waiting until the day before the inauguration of the new administration to release the port into the attack. the new administration took
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over, could've made a decision to do something about the fact of war and did nothing. 11 months after the attack, the nation would pay a tragic price. i will tell you we will never answer, be able to answer the question on whether the attack on uss cole and responding to a would've tipped our hand in the intelligence world so that we might know whether or not 9/11 was in progress and what was going on. but i guarantee you, doing nothing in response to the attack sealed our fate. c-span: on october 18, 2000, there was an event at the naval station. we've got somebody with that, where there were ships they are, men and women dressed in their right. were you there for that event? >> guest: know, those memorial ceremony put together by the navy. the wounded who had been brought
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back in the porch in the naval hospital could be brought overbite ambulance were able to attend not to honor the 17 that had been killed. c-span: but you are frustrated to write your book when you talk about two years he wanted or the mac. i'm meeting was held with members -- family members. what year was that? >> that happened in january 2001 before the investigation was released there was a meeting held rural families were assembled at the base theater and more folk have made the commander-in-chief of the atlantic fleet at the time, admiral biden matter and so is the federal bureau of investigation louis freeh was there and they basically gave a briefing on where they stood with the investigation, what was going on in the families basically loaded on them. they didn't feel they were getting the attention, didn't feel questions are being answered properly. they felt a call was ignored in many ways but n.a.b. leadership and they wanted some real answers and they were getting a.
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c-span: what about the meeting with president obama? >> guest: that happen right after he took office. that meeting was actually triggered by his executive order decisions to close guantánamo bay, suspend commissions and connect to review every detainee at guantánamo bay. c-span: you say in order to get the family members there, they ended up going to the obama contributor list? >> guest: well, initially would happen is when presented about why to me, he initially wanted to meet with 9/11 family members and was going to be 9/11 family members not to be supporting him in his run for office. you have to remember when he signed up executive orders, and i was before he did this to be ever consult the department of state, justice or defense. he didn't know the real impact was going to be on making that decision to say in closing guantánamo bay within a year and
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getting rid of all the detainees because they're clearly an about place at the wrong time and others are in the federal court system. all you have to do is look one year later and was very clear the american people have spoken out crystal clear, despite what the attorney general wants to do and that guantánamo should remain open. it was never intended to be the detention facility. it was always an intelligence facility. that's it i believe it still should become. and talking to family fare, is one of the families of 9/11 is had uss cole has been in order this all along. you need to invite them. the less than 48 hours notice he notified families of cold and unfortunately the only ones that could attack with a once close by to washington d.c. who came at the last minute were able to make it. c-span: where it's cold today? >> guest: great news, uss cole deflate for the six-time center pare back on the high seas and left norfolk about six weeks ago. c-span: so after the explosion
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when you lie 17 of your crew and 37 wounded, how long did it take to get uss cole back in active-duty? >> guest: it took a period of 15 months from the time uss cole was brought back on the heavy that ship blue marlin and arrived in mid-december until she sailed away from the yard at the huntington naval shipyard in past to gullah mississippian april 2002, was about a 15 month rebuild. c-span: what did it cost us? >> guest: $250 million. reiko back to this book. with scores you feel you subtle than this but she wanted to decide the things you do about the families of the crew? >> guest: i did want to settle any scores. i wanted to memorialize a great crew they did a phenomenal job saving the ship and their shipmates. that book is truly about the heroic effort that they made the arduous and terrible
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circumstances where to live under for a 70 days in port of aden. the fact that we almost lost the ship the first day once come on this for sure lawsuit saturday and then brought it back in all the things we endured afterwords, whether it's from the investigation being ignored in the long view of history by a navy and the nation, who we fell under the footprint of dynabook in and consequently we have been relegated to that dustbin and left to drift into its security, which is why i finally said, you know, this has to be captured to the american people. the american people deserve to know the heroes i was privileged to command that day and what phenomenal job they did. c-span: you don't say much about this and i want to read it get further explanation. >> guest: kevin sweeney walked into the ship and announced the pity party was over and suddenly all letters, gifts, posters and schoolchildren patriot act americans across the nation have
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everything was disposed of by the end of the day. >> guest: i was shocked when i heard that from the crew. kevin sweeney was my relief as commanding officer on board uss cole. when i had heard that it happened, what bothered me most is he was clearly receiving guidance pressure for leadership at the navy to put this attack behind you, look forward and turn the ship around and get them moving forward. the crew never felt like there is a pity party. they never felt harassed for anyone to be sorry for them. all they wanted with help in dealing with the issues they were dealing with. everyone on the ship come including he had posttraumatic stress, but it's how you do with it is to whether or not it becomes a disorder. it were still working through the process, but having a harsh let's cut it off and look forward and not do anything with older crew together on several occasions they chose to remain behind to rebuild and encourage everyone that had been there
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during the attack to leave at some point. c-span: did you know him? >> guest: i didn't know kevin before he did that. one of the unique things as once you assume command, it is your shade. once you relinquish command come as no longer sure. why i had feelings for how he made decisions always in command, visit his decisions to make. he did what he thought was best as commanding officer, writer ron come every commanding officer has that opportunity. you make decisions that in one that unwanted history may be right or wrong, but that is one of the great things about being in command. it's a privilege and burden as well. c-span: back to the actual event, how were the 17 killed? in other words, where were they the last device collects >> guest: a combination of people in the galley area, and i find itself in the main entry a number one and a general workshop where we do repair work for the ship next to it. the force of the explosion when it came into the ship literally
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took the deck of the galley area felt from the ceiling and blew it into four pieces. one cut off the left side of the ship, one frame forwarding to mike chief petty officer, one thing it's been my fine crushing entrapping sailors in the wreckage. the other took everyone working in the galley a lot with the equipment of the standing then i find and begin to shout and crush them to resist our board or right side of the ship. c-span: among the injured, how many were severely injured to this day have a problem? >> guest: you know, i haven't kept track on medical conditions, so i don't really know. i know a number of soviet treatment through the va. in number retired with disabilities they received in the attack, but that is part of the consequences of raising your right hand right hand in choosing a lack of consequences. when these things have been telling the nation assumes the responsibility to take care of the rest of their lives.
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c-span: i read about debbie courtney, denise woodfin. i read about in chamberlain. i can do one. you see were going with this. a lot of women on the ship. >> guest: absolutely. the morning i didn't have men and women on uss cole. i'd sailors in each of them performed phenomenally. the fact they singled them out and you pointed out women aboard the ship, i looked at it and said i don't have men and women aboard the ship. i'd sailors and officers. the aga treated fair and square. we have permission to do a nasty uss cole and that's exactly what we did. but not plastic, it didn't matter whether you are a man, women. they all performed phenomenally as a team and did what was necessary to save the ship. c-span: need remain silent on the additional crews remains despite repeated queries here the longer the wait, the
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continuing tragedy as many sought a degree of closure and healing nature of time. months have gone by with no word as families waited in silence. >> guest: they were still working on identifying the remains had been found as cole was disassembled for repair. when 9/11 occurred, we got put on the back burner. 9/11 became the priority or the identification became the priority. cole, one of my complaints all along was relegated off to the side and we would be told to wait. and i knew there was families out there that deserved better. those people in the pentagon were no higher priority than we were. we have been waiting for months. now is going to turn into more than a year before mood get this remains identified and they needed to be handled any dignified manner.
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c-span: there's a prison in guantánamo who as we talk is due for a tribunal. can you explain that? when you read this book come it hasn't determined he was in a tribunal. >> guest: is part of the whole process of the obama administration, with a shutdown commissions and bring everyone here, during the end of the bush administration, the guy you're speaking to is odd that all mean out machinery brought to guantánamo bay, they're waiting for military commission to be conducted on him. we have seen the movement forward and allow the department of defen to move forward. we're beginning to see the charges reinstated against him. they are now going to the members of motions. you see every legal shenanigan in the book trying to get to delay the trial. this is classic lawyer.
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we have as many motions as they can to try and delay the trial and in two years and we had gone to a commission, though claimed the united states government is delaying a fair trial. he was the principal explosives guy that was brought into the country to coordinate pulling together all of the assets, conduct the attack after a failed attack in january 2000 against another navy ship. the sullivans have pulled in. there he put together a boat with explosives and attempted to set it out to the ship. unfortunately they would swamp the go, sink appeared. the people very scattered, came back from a recovered equipment, the explosives, tested in the desert. then they would bring a machinery and reorganize the entire way they were planning to conduct the attack, move to a new safe house, rebuild the boat, put it in there properly and wait for the right time. no more than 9/11 was picked as today come the u.s. fiscal wasn't picked as the ship. when they were ready, they made
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a call in the bow came out to us masquerading the garbage barge. i can go into the specifics, but i've been told there's a lot of good forensic evidence that definitely ties into the attack. c-span: what should happen to think like >> guest: he should get the death penalty. c-span: what are the chances he will? >> guest: i think it's fairly good if we have administration and its political willpower willpower to do it if he's tried and convicted of that crime. you should be sentenced to death and expeditiously carried out. we are at war. i think the american people have made it clear they realize what's going on in guantánamo bay is a result of the war effort, not a large-scale criminal action back at the literary force. c-span: you spent 27 years in the navy. >> guest: 26. c-span: four years under the academy, 30 years total. what do you need now to make a
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living? >> guest: i mostly talk about groups to uss cole. i am also on the board of advisers for a startup company to build terriers for waterside protection for ships called halo defense systems out of massachusetts. so they are very much starting them interested in doing it. look like they've got a superb product. just trying to make sure the american people stay aware. i engaged in the future of my state and nevada obviously, working to make sure they get the representation they need to carry the nation forward. c-span: in your book you referred to her closest friend come in a. you don't explain who she is. i must ask what relationship issue to you? >> guest: she and i have been over after a together for well over 10 years and is my closest friend. c-span: had he been married? dear children? >> guest: not married and do not have children.
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c-span: what are your thoughts about? on the next page the attack on cole fundamentally changed for forest protection and that the attacks on september 11, the nation felt vulnerable. what has changed now for someone attacks on the ship in the navy? >> guest: what you see now is the navy has done a good job and doing a lot of exercises in giving commanding officers out there when it comes to force protection for their ships, they have now provided a lot more procedures and equipment and training to be able to do it. i'll give you an example. one of the force protection measures that will always go with this keep unauthorized craft waiting. sounds pretty straightforward, captain. when you do a? here's the reality. at the time uss cole deployed in the we never had any force protection at your sizes. we had moderate intrusion exercises conducted from the pier, where people would get past the ship.
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we never experience like the potential for ied coming on the pier, waterborne ied like we would face. nowadays when i tell them about going to see it, when they are told to do a force protection measure can ask yourself the questions, what procedures do i use? what equipment do i have? what training have i given mike clue? what do i have available to use those measures when intelligence are driving me to do this measures themselves? if i go into a host nation, are they trained at the same level and get the same capability to check out the small boats coming up to your ship? do they have the ability to check vehicles that might be coming down the pier? and if not, you have to expand your presence to do that. if local authorities to let you do that that or the navy's uncomfortable, don't pull in. c-span: where is the?
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>> guest: i would need to go back and look. i believe yemen. c-span: where were they to a multiple bow that pulled the plug -- pulled the trigger on the bomb, where they found? [inaudible] c-span: were they killed instantly? >> guest: instantly. we found pieces of bomber all over the top side of the shed. reiko what is the explosive they use? >> guest: plastic explosives similar to what we call c-4. it was interweaves with tnt. c-span: the title of the book is "front burner." our guest is commander kirk lippold in the united states navy retired emmie thank you very much. >> guest: one thing i'd like to do brightness can be one of my challenge coins for having me on the show. thank you for letting me share the stories and great heroes of people today. c-span: thank you very much.
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>> for a dvd copy of this program, call 1-877-662-7726. for free transcripts are to get comments about this program, the internet sites una.org. q&a programs available at c-span podcasts.

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